Rotpunktverlag
| Rotpunktverlag | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1976 |
| Seat | Zurich , Switzerland |
| Number of employees | 8 (2018) |
| Branch | publishing company |
| Website | www.rotpunktverlag.ch |
| Status: 2018 | |
The Rotpunktverlag is a Swiss publishing house based in Zurich . The program includes the areas of political non-fiction, contemporary fiction as well as hiking and leisure guides.
history
The publishing house was founded in 1976 as a cooperative "Rotpunkt Verlag (RPV)" by resolution of the party leadership of the Progressive Organizations in Switzerland (POCH) with the purpose of " promoting the publication and distribution of socialist literature". The first publication of Rotpunkt Verlag was Fidel Castro's Selected Speeches on International Politics 1965-1976 .
Until the beginning of the 1990s, Rotpunkt Verlag was a grassroots volunteer project whose members, with frequently changing members, decided on the publishing program. During this time, among other things, the publication of peanuts fell. Killing as the first work by Ruth Schweikert , Poor Little Poet , Who I was by Roque Dalton and I'm Thomy by Walter Matthias Diggelmann . The influence of POCH on publishing activities decreased continuously. In 1991 the publisher created its first paid job. Two years later the design concept was professionalized.
From 1995 the publisher began to publish books on the subject of nature and the environment . The background to this was the interest in the Alps from the ecological left as a political issue due to the emerging problem areas of traffic, tourism, energy and agriculture in the Alpine region. Over time, the dedicated hiking book and culinary guides were created here.
In 1997 the cooperative "Rotpunkt Verlag (RPV)" was converted into a stock corporation to ensure the continuity of the publishing house . The publisher was renamed "Rotpunktverlag". Since then, the number of titles available has increased from 99 to 330 in 2018. The number of books published per year has increased from an average of 11 (1997) to currently 25.
Publishing program
In 2018, the Rotpunktverlag program consists of the programs Red - Political Non-Fiction , Green - Hiking and Leisure, and Blue - Fiction in the Blue Edition .
Red - Political non-fiction book
Political non-fiction is the most important part of the publishing portfolio. The program has a decidedly political claim and aims to take a critical look at current issues, to shed light on new topics, to initiate debates, to point out the background, and also to entertain. In 1981, Pisani's diary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was one of the publisher's important publications. Ecology, international politics, social and economic justice are the issues that play an important role for the publisher. In addition, »country portraits« are published that portray Cuba, the USA, Afghanistan, Colombia, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, Iran, Syria and Eritrea, for example. Switzerland is also often the focus of publications. Throughout the 40-year history of the publishing house, authors of the publishing house have repeatedly influenced the debates in the country with their books.
Green - hiking and leisure
From 1992, among others, Jürg Frischknecht , Dominik Siegrist and Werner Bätzing began to establish »Wanderbuch plus«. The basis for this should be thoroughly researched background information on nature, culture and ecology. Different formats have emerged over the years, including the “reading book”, which was invented by the authors Ursula Bauer and Jürg Frischknecht, as well as architecture and art hiking books. The "Naturpunkt" series, which was also created in the mid-1990s, is dedicated to gentle tourism and deals with hiking areas in various regions. As part of the 20th anniversary, the series was revised under the supervision of a »Naturpunkt Advisory Board«. In the meantime, this program runs under the heading »Hiking and Leisure«, as the spectrum of this series now goes beyond hiking.
Blue - Fiction in the Blue Edition
The fiction program has been published under the Edition Blau label since autumn 2016. It is intended to present new discoveries and rediscoveries in German-language literature and the other Swiss national languages. These include S. Corinna Bille (1912–1979) from Valais , six of whom are now in the program, the Italian writer Cesare Pavese (1908–1950), whose novels appear in a new translation by Maja Pflug , Bruno Pellegrino and Paolo Cognetti (Awarded Italy's most important literary prize, the Premio Strega, in 2017), Yael Inokai (winner of the Swiss Literature Prize 2018), Romana Ganzoni and Pascale Kramer (Swiss Grand Prix Literature 2017).
Magazines in Rotpunktverlag
The contradiction is a journal that is politically independent of parties, organizations and institutions and has been intended to provide a platform for open and critical debates since 1981. The themed issues appear every six months.
Viceversa Literatur is a Swiss literary magazine that appears annually in three different editions, in German by Rotpunktverlag, in French by Editions d'en bas (Lausanne) and in Italian by Edizioni Casagrande (Bellinzona). Viceversa wants to make Switzerland's literary work known beyond language borders and promote cultural exchange. The yearbook is linked to the Swiss literatures online platform viceversaliteratur.ch .
authors
The Rotpunktverlag publishes books by the following authors, among others: Daniel Anker, Werner Bätzing , Ursula Bauer, S. Corinna Bille , Susan Boos, Paolo Cognetti , Jürg Frischknecht , Romana Ganzoni , Romain Gary , André Gorz , Marcel Hänggi , Rolf Hermann , Stefan Howald , Al Imfeld , Yael Inokai, Stefan Keller , Pascale Kramer , Fredi Lerch , Carl Albert Loosli , Ueli Mäder , Marie Modiano , Loretta Napoleoni , Peter Niggli, Cesare Pavese , Pippo Pollina , Leta Semadeni , Vandana Shiva , Patrick Spät , Vincenzo Todisco , Werner van Gent, Michael Zeuske , Emil Zopfi and Andreas Zumach .
Awards
- Swiss publisher of the year 2011
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry of the «Rotpunkt Verlag (RPV)» cooperative in the commercial register of the Canton of Zurich ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Entry of the stock corporation “Rotpunktverlag” in the commercial register of the Canton of Zurich ( Memento of the original dated December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Swiss Literature Prize 2018
