The Luchterhand Literaturverlag is a German

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

contemporary literature Contemporary literature is literature which is generally set after World War II in the English-speaking world. Subgenres of contemporary literature include contemporary romance. History Literary movements are always contemporary to the writer di ...

based in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. It was founded in 1924, and was acquired by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

in 2001. Luchterhand is considered one of the most prestigious publishers in Germany. Publications include literature from

Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of D ...

and Christa Wolf and many others.

History

In 1924, Hermann Karl Wilhelm Luchterhand founded Luchterhand publisher in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, dedicated to taxation and law. He then published an information pamphlet on taxation, which added to the earlier publications of forms and manuals for the payroll office. In 1934, he appointed Eduard Reifferscheid as managing partner. In 1936, Luchterhand went back to his private life. The reasons of Hermann Luchterhands withdrawal are still unknown. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the companies headquarters moved during the reconstruction from Berlin to

Neuwied Neuwied () is a town in the north of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, capital of the District of Neuwied. Neuwied lies on the east bank of the Rhine, 12 km northwest of Koblenz, on the railway from Frankfurt am Main to Cologne. Th ...

. Where

Alfred Andersch Alfred Hellmuth Andersch (; 4 February 1914 – 21 February 1980) was a German writer, publisher, and radio editor. The son of a conservative East Prussian army officer, he was born in Munich, Germany and died in Berzona, Ticino, Switzerland. M ...

, along with many others, participated with his magazine articles and drawings to create an additional literary program. The first literary publications appeared in 1954.

Program

The literary program of Luchterhand exists since the year 1954. The publisher released several works from numerous important authors: such as "Die Vorzüge der Windhühner", the first book by

which was followed in 1959 by the novel "

The Tin Drum ''The Tin Drum'' (german: Die Blechtrommel, ) is a 1959 novel by Günter Grass. The novel is the first book of Grass's ' ('' Danzig Trilogy''). It was adapted into a 1979 film, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Bes ...

". Besides Grass were,

Peter Bichsel Peter Bichsel (born 24 March 1935) is a popular Swiss writer and journalist representing modern German literature. He was a member of the Gruppe Olten. Bichsel was born 1935 in Lucerne, Switzerland, the son of manual labourers. Shortly after h ...

Mikhail Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Soviet writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the fir ...

, Max von der Grün, Peter Härtling, Helmut Heissenbüttel,

Günter Herburger Günter Herburger (April 6, 1932 – May 3, 2018) was a German writer. He was initially counted among the "New Realists" funded by , became the author of socialist, imaginative utopian worlds since the 1970s and took an outsider position in German ...

Arno Holz Arno Holz (26 April 1863 – October 1929) was a German naturalist poet and dramatist. He is best known for his poetry collection ''Phantasus'' (1898). He was nominated for a Nobel prize in literature nine times. Life and Works Holz was born i ...

Ernst Jandl Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms. Poetry Inf ...

Hermann Kant Hermann Kant (; 14 June 1926 – 14 August 2016) was a German writer noted for his writings during the time of East Germany. He won the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1967. He served the Stasi as an informer under the codename ''IM Martin''. Early life ...

, Kurt Marti,

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

Anna Seghers Anna Seghers (; born ''Anna Reiling,'' 19 November 1900 – 1 June 1983), is the pseudonym of a German writer notable for exploring and depicting the moral experience of the Second World War. Born into a Jewish family and married to a Hungarian ...

, Michael Scharang, Robert Wolfgang Schnell, Claude Simon,

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repr ...

, Jörg Steiner,

Carl Sternheim Carl Sternheim (born William Adolph Carl Francke; 1 April 1878 – 3 November 1942) was a German playwright and short story writer. One of the major exponents of German Expressionism, he especially satirized the moral sensibilities of the emergi ...

, Gabriele Wohmann, Christa Wolf,

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

and many other authors represented in the program of Luchterhand. An important part of the program had up until the 1990s licensed editions from DDR-authors. In 1993, the ''Luchterhand collection'' was sold to

dtv Verlagsgesellschaft The dtv Verlagsgesellschaft is a German publishing house headquartered in Munich. It was founded in 1960 by eleven publishers as a common paperback publishing house named "Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag" (German paperback publishing house). Starti ...

. Luchterhand has works from more than 100 writers available. Every year, over twenty new titles appear. Among the more well-known works from recent years include "Gleis 4" by

Franz Hohler Franz Hohler (born 1 March 1943) is a Swiss author and cabaret performer based in Zürich. Life Hohler is the author of one-man programs and satirical programs for television and radio. He has written theater pieces, children's books, storie ...

, "Das Ungeheuer"

Terézia Mora Terézia Mora (; born 5 February 1971) is a Hungarian writer, screenwriter and translator. Early life and education Terézia Mora was born in Sopron, Hungary, to a family with German roots and grew up bilingual. She moved to Germany after th ...

, "Die Erfindung des Lebens" by

Hanns-Josef Ortheil Hanns-Josef Ortheil (born 5 November 1951, in Cologne) is a German author, scholar of German literature, and pianist. He has written many autobiographical and historical novels, some of which have been translated into 11 languages, according to Wo ...

and also "Vor dem Fest" by

Saša Stanišić Saša Stanišić ( sr-cyr, Саша Станишић; born 7 March 1978) is a Bosnian-German writer. He was born in Višegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the son of a Bosniak mother and a Serbian father. In the spring of 1992, he fled alongside hi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luchterhand Literaturverlag 1924 establishments in Germany Mass media in Munich Book publishing companies of Germany Bertelsmann subsidiaries Publishing companies established in 1924