A young man is gripped by one fear: that he’ll lose his mind. In his family, mental illness has shaped lives for generations, and time in psychiatric wards has become almost a rite of passage. His battle to avoid inheriting his grandmother’s suicidal behavior, his mother’s bipolar disorder, or his father’s bouts with alcoholism and depression spurs him to flee Germany for New York, via Paris and Vienna, only to end up in just the kind of mental institution that so terrified him. But he works there as a psychologist rather than undergo treatment as a patient himself, and learns that a person is always more than a diagnosis. In this picaresque novel, a potent blend of memoir and fiction, the protagonist is forced to confront the question he has avoided all his life: What is normal?

“Irresistible. A book that is at once grave and light, tender and tough, satirical and earnest.” — Siri Hustvedt, author of The Shaking Woman or a History of My Nerves and Ghost Stories

“Illuminating . . . moves at a roving pace . . . Botany of Madness is a riveting novel in which a man weighs mental illness with prismatic precision, his work involving scientific classifications, autofiction, and memory.” — Foreword Reviews

Translator bio
Alexandra Roesch has translated twelve works of fiction and nonfiction including writings by Hans Fallada, Seraina Kobler, and Stefanie vor Schulte, and has been awarded the inaugural John Calder Translation Prize. Based in Frankfurt, she holds an MA in translation from the University of Bristol.

Author bio
Leon Engler grew up in Munich and studied theater, film, and psychology in Vienna, Paris, and Berlin. He has published several plays and short stories and works as an author, psychologist, and lecturer in psychology and creative writing. Botany of Madness is his first novel.

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Gottland opens an unusual window on the history of Central Europe, in particular the part of it occupied by the Czechs. Mariusz Szczygieł presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Czechs as a nation, gathering together a wide-ranging cast of characters: the sculptor commissioned to build the world’s biggest statue of Stalin; the stage star who was Goebbels’ lover; Franz Kafka’s niece; Karel Gott, who won the “Most Popular Male Singer” award a record thirty-six times; and the Bata brothers, founders of a shoe empire that shod half the world. Many of these people’s lives were marked by tragedy as they fell victim to the historical events that engulfed twentieth-century Europe. One of Europe’s preeminent investigative journalists and a devoted Czechophile, Szczygieł is uniquely placed to capture this country and its people through these bizarre, tragic stories. Built from meticulous research and hundreds of interviews, Gottland is a mesmerising and offbeat tour of the nation that gave us Franz Kafka, Václav Havel and Tom Stoppard.

“One of those delightfully unclassifiable books... Szczygieł is strange and funny, constantly off at jaunty tangents.” Julian Barnes, Book of the Year, The Guardian

”Extraordinary... Gottland is one of the funniest books I have read and one of the shrewdest about what it was like to live under fascism and communism, the experience of so much of Europe in the last century. It is not about Czechoslovakia or Poland or even limited to Mitteleuropa, but about how one copes with tyranny and corruption and preserves a conscience... Important and enjoyable.” The Spectator

”Many of the stories in Mariusz Szczygieł's portrait of Czechoslovakia could have come from the pages of Kafka... Absorbing, offbeat history.” The Financial Times

”Non-fiction stories from Czechoslovakia, which show a country more fantastical than even its wildest literature led us to believe.” The Guardian

”Gottland offers an indelible account of the ravages of 20th-century totalitarianism and the way it continues to pollute human thought and behavior in the 21st century.” New York Times

Translator bio
Antonia Lloyd-Jones has translated works by many of Poland’s leading contemporary novelists and reportage authors, as well as classics, biographies, essays, crime fiction, poetry and children’s books. Her translation of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by 2018 Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International prize. For ten years she was a mentor for the Emerging Translators’ Mentorship Programme, and is a former co-chair of the UK Translators Association. Her recent published translations include Not There by Mariusz Szczygieł, reportage about (broadly understood) loss, and as compiler and co-translator, The Penguin Book of Polish Short Stories.

Author bio
Mariusz Szczygieł is one of Europe’s most celebrated journalists. A reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza, he is the author of a number of books of reportage about the Czech Republic and Poland. His books have been published in twenty-one countries and have been awarded the Europe Book Prize and the Prix Amphi, among other honours. From 1995–2001, he hosted a popular talk show on Polish television. Szczygieł runs the Institute of Reportage in Warsaw, a creative writing reportage school, and Dowody na Isnienie, an independent publishing house. Not There won the Nike Award and Nike Readers' Award in Poland on publication in 2019.

BUY THE BOOK: https://www.lindeneditions.com/shop/p/gottland-exploding-stalin-and-other-true-tales-from-the-heart-of-europe-by-mariusz-szczygie-translated-by-antonia-lloyd-jones

A comic, irreverent and mournful romp of a book, set in 2016 with flashbacks to the '40s, '70s and '90s, and one quick journey all the way back to Ancient Greece.

The hero Aris is a young man, early 20s, sinking into a quicksand of confusion and of angst. As a baby he was adopted by a German couple, a sort of act of reparation for atrocities committed by Germany in Greece in World War II. A dying Greek woman in the nursing home where he works in southern Germany sends him on an odyssey to Greece to find and deliver a secret briefcase to her granddaughter. Tales of Aris’s absurd adventures in modern-day down-and-out Athens are interwoven with the experiences of a young Greek boy named Stylanios during the German occupation of World War II Greece, who flees to a monastery in Mount Athos, narrowly missing explosions and atrocities around him. We ultimately learn that the two stories are entwined.

The writing is informal and engaging, the dialogue is raw and hilarious, and the novel has a wonderful sense of place, with scenes set in the taverns and greasy spoons of small-town Germany and contemporary Athens, as well as in the villages and monasteries of the countryside in war-time Greece.

“…The trip is beset with all sorts of unpleasantness, hilarious twists and turns, and harsh reality, softened only by the fact that Bekas tells the story with such zest and affection for his characters, that you simply fall in love with them all as the story progresses.” Marcus Weingärtner, Berliner Zeitung, December 10, 2018 “A bold, spirited book that shows how one’s homeland is a blend of the past and the present.” Rainer Moritz, Chrismon.de, January 17, 2019

Sylvia Franke translates fiction and creative non-fiction from German to English. Her translations have appeared in "The Malahat Review" and "The Antigonish Review".
- 2025 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant Recipient
- 2023 Long-listed for the John Dryden Translation Competition

Gerasimos Bekas is a writer, playwright and theatre producer. He grew up in Greece and southern Germany. Past winner of a literary stipend from the Bavarian Academy of Writing, he won the 2014 taz Audience Award at Germany’s annual Open Mike event. His theatre productions include “The Dogs” (Athens Epidavros Festival 2024), “Republik of Baklava” (Athens Epidavros Festival 2021), “Das große Wundenlecken” (Staatstheater Augsburg 2016), “Glitsch-Gott” (Maxim Gorki Theatre 2015), “G for Gademis” (Greek National Theatre 2015). “All The Good Guys Were Dead” is his debut novel. Visit him at https://www.gerasimosbekas.com/.

Publisher's website: https://www.rowohlt.de/verlag/rights/book/gerasimos-bekas-alle-guten-waren-tot-9783498006846?srsltid=AfmBOopQ2IkoH5CWl8O2JLfykZcPVKaQRbeT6rMYrrj5RB1FVMFrqXDB