Project Description

QualityLandMarc-Uwe Kling

Germany

Marc-Uwe Kling is one of the most successful German authors of today. Millions have read his stories about a communist kangaroo. His novel QUALITYLAND is a hilarious dystopia that sometimes feels closer to the present than you would wish for. QualityLand spent months on the German bestseller lists and has been translated into more than twenty-five languages. In 2018, Kling received the German Science Fiction Award for QualityLand. The sequel QualityLand 2.0 was published in October 2020. In 2021, he won the international Jonathan Swift Prize for satirical and comic literature. Kling also entertains many young readers with his children’s books. THE UNICORN THAT SAID NO has become an international bestseller.

Marc-Uwe Kling© Ramon Kramer

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QualityLand 2.0. Kiki‘s Secret

There‘s a lot going on in QualityLand, the best of all possible countries. Every month is the hottest since weather records began, the drones are behaving very strangely and a billionaire wants to become president. Peter Jobless is finally allowed to work as a machine therapist and tries to solve the relationship problems of household appliances. Meanwhile, Kiki Unknown snoops into her own past and gets grief from a remote-controlled killer. And then there‘s the thing with World War III. Marc-Uwe Kling‘s funny dystopia about humans and machines in a big-data world enters its second round!
A book full of clever ideas, quirky characters and amazing plot twists.

Quotes

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QualityLand

QualityLand is a fun dystopia that plays in a near future. The novel takes the reader to an unspecified western country, which for reasons of image was renamed. In QualityLand work, leisure time and relationships are optimized by algorithms. QualityPartner knows who is best suited to you. The self-driving car knows where you want to go. And anyone who is registered with TheShop will receive all the products he or she wants, without having to order them, because the system knows what everybody wants. No one is forced any more to take difficult decisions – because in QualityLand the answer to every question is: OK.

Nevertheless, the machine-scrapper Peter begins to suspect that something is wrong with his life. If the system is really so perfect, why are there drones that suffer from fear of flight, or combat robots with post-traumatic stress disorder? Why did the system rate him at level 10, only one level above the single-digit range, where people are considered “useless”? Why does his girlfriend Sandra Admin unhesitatingly leave him during a romantic dinner when QualityPartner offers her a better partner as an upgrade? And why the hell does he get a pink vibrator in form of a dolphin from TheShop? Peter decides to return the unwanted product, but that’s not at all easy.

An astonishing futuristic satire about the promises and pitfalls of digitisation. Visionary, profound and very, very funny.

Quotes

QualityLand

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The Kangaroo Chronicles

In The Kangaroo Chronicles (“Die Känguru-Chroniken”) the author Marc-Uwe Kling lives together with a kangaroo and writes funny songs and stories. His business model is to publish books that fiercely criticize capitalism and sell incredibly well. The kangaroo came to Germany as a guest-worker. It is a communist and an antifascist, but most of the time behaves like an anarchist. Like every real kangaroo it loves boxing, always carries boxing gloves in its bag and founded the “Fight Club”, where people are trained to fight Nazis. Its antipathy to capitalism is easy to understand when it plays Monopoly with Marc-Uwe: the kangaroo doesn’t accept any rules, refuses to pay the rent for entering a house and squats in it; then all houses, train stations, the waterworks and the electricity power station are claimed free for the public. The game ends surprisingly in a tie. It is really into Nirvana. It’s a classical Berlin flat-sharing community, where the deep questions of life are hotly debated: is lying in a hammock already a kind of passive resistance? Must the kangaroo place its pouch onto the conveyor belt at the airport security check? Did the kangaroo really fight for the Vietcong? And why is it addicted to champagne truffles?

In The Kangaroo Manifest (“Das Känguru-Manifest”) they are back again: the communist kangaroo and the stoic artisan. In their fight against the mysterious Ministry of Productivity they are not afraid of anything. A conspiracy at the lowest level. Spectacular revelations. Scandals. Something crazy about religion. Wonderfully slanting stories – with fun, excitement and champagne truffles.

The Kangaroo Revelation (“Die Känguru-Offenbarung”) is the fulminating sequel to the sequel: the marsupial and the minky artist on the hunt for the mysterious penguin. Get ready: This is the revelation of the kangaroos to show the Asocial Network what will happen in the near future.

The Kangaroo Apocrypha (“Die Känguru-Apokryphen”) will guide you through all of life situations. Whether it‘s a meeting with Donald Trump or Kim-Jong Un‘s birthday, you‘ll have the arguments on your side in small talk. This book teaches you how to become smarter, more self-reliant and slimmer in your sleep. It will influence your opinions on the following topics: Craftsmen, Coriander, Nazis, Potters, Social Democrats. There is also a kangaroo in it.

Quotes

The Kangaroo Chronicles

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The Clue Finder

Marc-Uwe Kling has created a new novel universe together with his 12-year-old twin daughters Johanna and Luise Kling. The Clue Finder (“Der Spurenfinder”) is a fantasy crime comedy about an unusual trio of investigators.
“Elos von Bergen was not just any clue seeker. It was he who solved the riddle of the Obelisk of Tarnok. He brought the Countess of Oberlinden back her griffin. He caught the dream killer of Altschwanenberg. He was the most famous clue seeker of the Lost Provinces. Although he would never have called himself a clue seeker. Elos von Bergen was a clue finder.”
Elos von Bergen has actually given up clue-finding since a case with a vindictive night-wizard almost cost him and his children Ada and Naru their lives. That’s why the three of them have been living in Friedhofen, the sleepiest village in the entire kingdom (its name literally means “graveyard”), for several years now. There, Elos works on writing his twenty-volume memoirs – much to the chagrin of the children, who are bored to tears in such a backwater. But then a mysterious murder occurs in Friedhofen, of all places, which drags Elos into the trickiest case of his life. And if he thinks his children will stay at home and twiddle their thumbs in the meantime, he is very much mistaken.

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Princess Head-of-Snot

There once was a princess all pretty and blinking.
Like most of her kind,
her great weakness was thinking.

And not only is Princess Head-of-Snot (“Prinzessin Popelkopf”) stupid, she’s also mean, which is why a little witch curses her and turns her into what her name means. From now on, the princess must actually wear a giant snot-filled head on her neck. Her father, King Stinkfoot Headof-Snot, suggests that she should change her name and thus her appearance by getting married. However, the picky princess does not wish to marry Prince Poop-Puss nor Sir Zit because she is in love with Duke Doofus.“ The rhymes in Marc-Uwe Kling’s cheerfully impolite children’s story, about superficialities and the power to change oneself, will have both children and adults laughing out loud. With imaginative and quirky illustrations by Astrid Henn.

Quotes

Princess Head-of-Snot

RIGHTS

NOVELS
QualityLand 2.0: Kiki‘s Secret
Berlin: Ullstein, 2020, 432 p.
English working translation available
Catalan: Edicions Periscopi 2023  France: Actes Sud 2022 · Kuwait: Dar Alkhan 2023 · Russia: Eksmo 2022 · Spain: Tusquets 2023 · Turkey: Epsilon

QualityLand
Berlin: Ullstein 2017, 384 p.
Over 1.021.000 copies sold
Under the top 10 of the Spiegel Bestseller list over 5 month
Azerbaijan: Nebula · Brazil: Planeta 2020 · Bulgaria: Colibri 2022 · Catalan: Periscopi 2020 · China: White Horse 2023 · Czech Republic: Albatros Media 2021 · Finland: Like 2021 · France: Actes Sud 2021 · Hungary: Helikon 2020 · Italy: Feltrinelli 2020 · Japan: Kawade Sobo Shinsha 2019 · Kuwait: Alsurra 2019 (Arabic) · Lithuania: Alma Littera 2020 · The Netherlands: DeHarmonie 2019 · Persian: Azadnamagan Verlag (only eBook and audio book rights) 2021 · Poland: NieZwykłe (Dariusz Marszałek) 2020 · Portugal: Presença · Russia: Eksmo 2020, 2022 · Serbia: Laguna 2020 · Slovakia: Ikar 2020 · Spain: Tusquets (Spanish world rights) 2020 · Sweden: Thoren & Lindskog 2020 · Taiwan: Crown Publishing Company 2019 · Turkey: Epsilon 2019 · UK: Orion 2020 · USA: Grand Central (Hachette) 2020

Kangaroo Trilogy
Film rights sold to x-Filme (“Goodbye, Lenin”, “Das weiße Band”). Approx. budget: 10 million euros, director Dani Levy. Release March 2020
195 weeks on the Spiegel Bestseller list
Audio Books Awards (11x Gold)

The Kangaroo Apocrypha (“Die Känguru-Apokryphen”)
Berlin: Ullstein 2018, 208 p.

The Kangaroo Revelation (“Die Känguru-Offenbarung: der Känguru-Chroniken dritter Teil”)
Berlin: Ullstein 2014, 2015, 393 p.
Finland: BookBeat OY (audio and eBook) · France: Laffont · Sweden: Thorén & Lindskog; BookBeat AB (audio book)

The Kangaroo Manifest (“Das Känguru-Manifest: der Känguru-Chroniken zweiter Teil”)
Berlin: Ullstein 2011, 2015, 302 p.
Finland: BookBeat OY (audio and eBook) · France: Laffont · The Netherlands: De Harmonie 2019 · Sweden: Thorén & Lindskog; BookBeat AB (audio book)

The Kangaroo Chronicles (“Die Känguru-Chroniken: Ansichten eines vorlauten Beuteltiers”)
Berlin: Ullstein 2009, 2015, 271 p.
Complete English translation available
Denmark: Turbine 2016 · Finland: BookBeat OY (audio and eBook) · France: Laffont 2019 · Korea: Will Company 2016 · Kuwait: Alsurra 2019 (Arabic) · The Netherlands: De Harmonie 2018 · Sweden: Thorén & Lindskog 2021; BookBeat AB (audio book)

CHILDREN’S BOOKS
The Day Tiffany Rocked the Water out of the Tub (“Der Tag, an dem Tiffany das Wasser aus der Wanne geschaukelt hat“)
Ill. by Astrid Henn
Hamburg: Carlsen 2022
, 72 p.

The Day Grandpa Put the Water Boiler on the Stove (“Der Tag, an dem der Opa den Wasserkocher auf den Herd gestellt hat”)
Ill. by Astrid Henn
Hamburg: Carlsen 2020, 72 p.
Hungary: Scolar Kiadó 2021 · Poland: Debit 2022

The Unicorn that Said No (“Das NEINhorn”)
Ill. by Astrid Henn
Hamburg: Carlsen 2019, 48 p.
China: Wu-Nan 2021 · Czech Republic: Barrister & Principal · Denmark: Bolden · Finland: Lasten keskus 2021 · Hungary: Scolar Kiadó 2020 · Iceland: Bokafelagid · Italy: EL 2020 · The Netherlands: Volt 2020 · Poland: Debit 2021 · Romania: Univers 2021 · Serbia: Pcelica 2022 · South Korea: Byeolsoop · Spain: Picarona (all four national languages) 2021 · Turkey: Pegasus 2022 · UK + Commonwealth: Templar 2021

The Day Grandma Broke the Internet (“Der Tag, an dem die Oma das Internet kaputt gemacht hat”)
Ill. by Astrid Henn
Hamburg: Carlsen 2018, 72 p.
China: Jieli · Denmark: Turbine 2019 · Greek: Metaixmio 2019 · Hungary: Scolar Kiadó 2019 · Latvia: Jāņa Rozes 2022 · The Netherlands: De Vier Windstreken 2020 · Poland: Debit 2022 · Russia: Teenbook · South Korea: LIME · Taiwan: Weber · Turkey: Uyurgezer 2019

Father Easter (“Der Ostermann”)
Ill. by Astrid Henn
Hamburg: Carlsen 2017, 48 p. · Hungary: Scolar Kiadó 2020 · Romania: Univers 2017

Princess Head-of-Snot (“Prinzessin Popelkopf”)
Ill. by Astrid Henn
Dresden/Leipzig: Voland & Quist 2015, 32 p.
English translation available
Hungary: Scolar Kiadó 2022

YOUNG ADULT
The Clue Finder (“Der Spurenfinder”)
Written by Marc-Uwe Kling, Johanna Kling and Luise Kling
Ill. by Bernd Kissel
Berlin: Ullstein 2023, 336 p.
Over 70,000 copies sold
Number 18 of the Spiegel bestelling list
English translation available

Represented for Spanish and Portuguese language