Begleitschreiben

A brief note on one of the left-overs of 68, the Verlag der Autoren, whom I once represented in this country, the USA, for a few years. I happened to be around Suhrkamp at the time that Carl Heinz Braun who led the Theater Verlag, and some other editors, made themselves independent with a socialistically and democratically constituted outfit that is still around. I tried something along the same lines with Urizen Books, but of the principles of that outfit I was the only one who really wanted that; and the great majority of the authors also didn't really care; they just wanted to get published. Unseld was rather clever: he could have made the break-out and founding much more difficult - because the authors, after all, had contracts with Suhrkamp, signed by him personally. Instead he offered VDA 100,000 DM to help them off the ground. I forgot whether that was accepted. so if there is a moral here, it is that once the financial heart ticks, then a certain amount of democratic socialistic non-authoritarianism is quite possible. Handke, too, joined VDA initially but then left and joined in the hip to Unseld who would help make him the # 1 that he wanted to be. this did not go over very big with Karl Heinz Braun, Handke's own explanation to me that "die sind Fascisten" sounded to me like an admission of guilt for being a faithless bastard; on the other hand, we cannot really know anything definitive until we know the the financial arrangements between Suhrkamp and Handke and how these may have forced him , i.e. advances on films, etc. Handke's portrayal of Unseld in LINKHAENDIGE FRAU & NIEMANDSBUCH is quite devastating!
http://www.verlagderautoren.de/verlag/index.html