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Zurich’s Literary Agencies
Daniel Kampa takes us on a journey through the unique history of Zurich’s literary agencies. James Joyce once said Zurich was so clean that if you spilled minestrone on Bahnhofstrasse you could eat it right up without a spoon. Joyce lived in Zurich from 1915 to 1919 and much of his writing was done in Universitätsstrasse 38, in walking distance from the now renowned literary agencies such as Mohrbooks, Liepman and Paul & Peter Fritz. Perhaps Joyce would have had less trouble finding publishers for his books or living from his writings had one of those agencies existed at that time. But Joyce died in 1941 and it was only after the war that Zurich became the dominant agents’ centre for the German-speaking literary market. The three large Zurich agencies named above, together with Niedieck Linder which specialises in Italian writers, dominated the German market for decades and are still major players on the scene. The oldest literary agency in Zurich is Mohrbooks, founded by Lothar Mohrenwitz (1896-1960). In the early 1920s, Mohrenwitz was the partner of the legendary publisher Kurt Wolff, who discovered Kafka, among others. He then managed the art book publishing house Hyperion and in 1930 became Editor-in-Chief of the German Vogue. In 1934, he fled from the Nazis and arrived in London penniless. Following the advice of one of his friends who was a literary agent, he began to sell the translation rights of English authors to German publishers. By 1939, however, business had turned sour – in Germany, literature by the enemy was not being published anymore. Luckily for Lothar Mohrenwitz, there was still neutral Switzerland. And so it happened that Mohrenwitz sold the rights to authors like John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Louis Bromfield and A. J. Cronin to Swiss publishers. Mohrenwitz’s agency later moved its offices to Zurich, keeping the old London telegram address as its name: Mohrbooks. Why Zurich? Not because the agency’s most important customers were based there – the German publishers soon overshadowed them. The reasons for Zurich were more practical: a stable currency; possibilities for foreign exchange transfer; international connections. Rainer Heumann (1923-1996), who became Mohrenwitz’s partner in 1951, took over the agency in 1960 and turned it into the biggest literary agency in the German-speaking world. Rainer Heumann was an old-fashioned gentleman’s agent, whose generosity was surpassed only by his erudition. After his death, the staff took over the agency, under the direction of Sabine Ibach, who has been at Mohrbooks since 1970, and Sebastian Ritscher, at Mohrbooks since 1989. Today, Mohrbooks has a staff of eight representing international clients as their German language representatives and estates such as Erich Maria Remarque’s. In 2000, a Berlin office was established to represent German-language authors exclusively. It is directed by Uwe Heldt, who represents over fifty authors. The reasons for the Liepman agency choosing Zurich were even simpler. Liepman was founded by Heinz and Ruth Liepman in Hamburg in 1949 – the first agency founded after the war. When writer and journalist Heinz Liepman got a job in 1961 as a Zurich-based correspondent for the German newspaper Die Welt, his wife and the agency moved with him. In 1934, a year after the Nazi take-over in Germany, Ruth Liepman (1909-2001) escaped to the Netherlands, where she worked underground and was able to help many Jews to flee the country. However, she herself stayed, and only survived thanks to the generous support of the Dutch. Heinz Liepman had emigrated to the USA in 1933 and worked for Time Magazine. When he returned to Hamburg after the war, American publishing friends asked him to find German publishers for some of their authors. Among the names on Liepman’s list were Norman Mailer, James Jones, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London, Arthur Miller and Richard Wright. The agency was born. In 1981, Ruth Liepman turned her privatelyowned firm into a limited company. Her longterm colleagues Eva Koralnik and Ruth Weibel became partners and later owners of the agency. Working with a staff of ten, Liepman AG represents an impressive number of publishing houses and agencies from the US, UK, Canada, France and Israel – over seventy in total. Liepman handles world rights for many eminent international authors and represents the estates of Anne Frank, Elias Canetti, Norbert Elias and Erich Fromm, to name just a few. The Liepman Agency is distinguished by its close, almost family-like relationships with its clients, even keeping a guest room for visiting authors with a marvellous view of Lake Zurich. Paul & Peter Fritz AG was founded in 1962 by Erich Linder as Linder AG with Paul Fritz as Managing Director. Fritz, who had formerly been in charge of marketing and distribution at the publishing house of Walter Verlag in Switzerland, became a partner in 1964, as did his son Peter in 1980, having joined the agency in 1975 after a two-year stint in New York at Rizzoli Bookstore and William Morrow, where he handled foreign rights. In 1977 the agency moved to Jupiterstrasse 1. Paul Fritz moved to the apartment above the new offices which had the added advantage of enabling him to take calls from America, which were notorious for occurring after business hours. In 1982, when Erich Linder died, the company was renamed Paul & Peter Fritz AG. At the end of 1987, Paul Fritz retired after 25 years of running the company, handing it over to his son. Always outspoken, sometimes emotional and never wavering from his principles, Paul Fritz had given the agency a unique reputation in the publishing world. Sadly, he did not live long enough to fully enjoy his retirement but died in June 1988. Today Peter S. Fritz, his sister, Antonia Fritz, their colleague Christian Dittus and a back-office of five helpers sign about 500 contracts annually. Paul & Peter Fritz represent over forty agencies, thirty publishers and many estates. Paul Fritz, Erich Linder, and Linder’s colleague René de Chochor were also the founders of the agency Niedieck Linder AG, together with Gerda Niedieck. Established in 1975 to handle German-language authors and their estates, it changed its focus from north to south over the years and is now probably best known for its representation of Italian authors and publishers in the German language market. Niedieck Linder also represents the estates of C.G.Jung, Arthur Schnitzler and Bohumil Hrabal, among others. After Gerda Niedieck's retirement in 1995, Niedieck Linder AG passed into the ownership of Antoinette Matejka and Leonardo La Rosa.
With its four well-known agencies, Zurich is
a must for German publishers looking for new
books and authors. The offices of all four are
conveniently located in the city’s 7th district.
In July last year they drew even closer, when
gathered in the garden of the Liepman Agency
for a joint summer party which looks set to
become a tradition. And there is always the
Kronenhalle, the legendary restaurant with
original paintings by Picasso, Matisse and
Braque – naturally the perfect meeting place
for business lunches with publishers and
authors. The best table is in the brasserie,
the first one on the right from the entrance
– it used to be James Joyce’s favourite, back
in the years when he was a regular and the
Kronenhalle was a modest tavern. Although
it has changed since then, you can easily
imagine that Joyce preferred having a
minestrone in the Kronenhalle than spooning
it up from the pavement of Bahnhofstrasse.
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