The Toby Press: Books - Contemporary European Writing

Alphabetical by Author . Alphabetical by Title . Toby Crime . Toby Classics .
Contemporary European Writing . Modern British Writers . New American Writers .
Toby Hebrew Classics . Jewish & Israeli . The Republic of Letters . Large Print Titles

Flight to Afar by Alfred Andersch A boy dreaming of Huckleberry Finn, a mortally ill Pastor, a disillusioned Communist, a young Jewish girl running for her life - meet in a half-derelict Baltic fishing village and are drawn into a daring plan of escape from Nazi Germany. At the center of their plan is a small statue in the Pastor's church... Paperback: ISBN: 1-59264-074-5 Pages: 100 8˝"x5˝" US$ 14.95 Publication date: May 2004 More Info...
The Cherries of Freedom by Alfred Andersch Alfred Andersch's desertion from the Wehrmacht in 1944 was the turning point in his life, and the obvious climax to his long-standing revulsion towards and opposition to the Third Reich. In The Cherries of Freedom, a great and humane book, he interpreted his desertion from the Germany army not as fear of death but as an existential vote for life, liberty and all things non-totalitarian. Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-052-4 Pages: c.200 8˝"x5˝" US$ 19.95 Publication date: May 2004 More Info...
Love, The Painter's Wife & The Queen of Sheba by Aliette Armel Love, The Painter's Wife and The Queen of Sheba tells two tales: that of the painter Piero della Francesca and his beloved wife, Silvia, and that of the Queen of Sheba's journey to Jerusalem to meet King Solomon. It is Silvia, the painter's wife, who recounts the latter, magical tale, as a means to inspire her husband to remain in their home in Arezzo, rather than accept the lure of a papal invitation to work in Rome... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-053-2, Pages: c.200, 8ľ"x5ľ" US$19.95 Publication date: May 2004 More Info...
Philippe Delelis (France) The Last Cantata In 1747, at the command of Frederick the Great, Bach composes his last cantata. But there is an error in the score, one which is studied by a young woman from the Paris Conservatory many years later. An error? Or a secret, which leads to the murder of friends and teachers...and Mozart. Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-31-1 Pages: 352 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
Anna Enquist (Netherlands) The Fire was Here The poems in The Fire Was Here bring together the three themes of Anna Enquist's adult life - music, psychology and motherhood - in an autobiographical harvest. These are poems about ordinary life written with extraordinary sensitivity and insight. A courageous and insightful collection, it stirs us with the powerful and emotional moments we all recognize - the touch of tenderness, the ache of longing, and the sweep of passion. Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-81-8 Pages: 120 8ľ"x5ľ" US$ 17.95 More Info...
Anna Enquist (Netherlands) The Ice Carriers What happens to parents when a teenager runs away from home? The Ice Carriers revolves around the charged relationships between husband and wife, parent and child. Nico and Louise both have successful careers: Nico is a director of a psychiatric hospital, and Louise a teacher of classical languages, but their successes in life become meaningless when their only daughter runs away from home. Outwardly they continue as ever, but internally they are falling apart... Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-78-8 8˝"x5˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
Anna Enquist (Netherlands) The Injury The Injury brings together ten of Anna Enquist's best short stories. A dramatic rescue in the North Sea in the 1840s. A school soccer match as a symbol of struggle. A devastating injury. A figure in a painting by Vermeer... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-22-2 Pages: 252 8ľ"x6ľ" US$ 19.95 Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-23-0 Pages: 252 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
Anna Enquist (Netherlands) The Masterpiece Enquist’s impassioned novel revolves around the artist Johan Steenkamer, the women who are drawn to him, and his troubled family relationships: an absent father, a manipulative mother and an emotionally crippled brother... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-05-2 Pages: 240 8ľ"x6ľ" US$ 19.95 Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-21-4 Pages: 278 8˝"x5˝" US$ 14.95 More Info...
Anna Enquist (Netherlands) The Secret Three storylines run through The Secret, like themes in a symphony, sometimes merging, sometimes overlapping, and sometimes going in different directions: this is the story of Wanda Wierickhe, the story of her past and the story of Bouw, the man she left. Winner of the 1997 DUTCH READERS PRIZE Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-07-9 Pages: 274 8ľ"x6ľ" US$ 19.95 Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-12-5 Pages: 274 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
Laurent Gaudé (France) The Death of King Tsongor The marriage of King Tsongor's only daughter, Princess Samilia, to Kouame, the Prince of the Salt Lands, was to have been his crowning achievement, but when a lone rider, a mysterious stranger from the past, challenges the King's chosen suitor, presenting a counter-claim that even Samilia cannot gainsay, a chain of tragic events is started that leads to ferocious battles and ends in blood, ashes and unending destruction... Winner of the PRIX GONCOURT DES LYCÉENS Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-030-3 Pages: c.130 8˝"x5˝" US$ 17.95 More Info...
Scholarium by Claudia Gross An overcast, rainy night in Cologne. A neighborhood is wrenched suddenly from its sleep by piercing screams. As residents rush down to the street, they catch only the merest glimpse of a figure in a billowing cloak hastening from the scene. The master cloth-maker is about to set off in hot pursuit when he finds on the ground a book, a pair of sleeves, shoes, a shirt and hose; and the body of Frederico Casall, a Master of the Seven Liberal Arts and an impassioned champion of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-056-7 8ľ"x5ľ" US$19.95 Publication date: June 2004 More Info...
Katharina Hacker (Germany) Morpheus In seven exquisitely crafted stories, the world of classical mythology comes to life—in ways you would never expect. Katharina Hacker’s vivid, literate imagination has created a masterpiece, seven separate stories yet all interlinked, of figures of Greek antiquity inexplicably—or explicably—living in the modern world... Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-66-4 Pages: 8˝"x5˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
Katharina Hacker (Germany) The Lifeguard This is a stunning first novel by a young German writer who has been hailed as an original new voice. The closing of a municipal swimming bath in East Berlin brings forth the memories of its lifeguard suppressed for 40 years, and the horrors committed there when he was young. Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-45-1 Pages: 216 8ľ"x5ľ" US$ 19.95 More Info...
Per Jorner (Sweden) After the Campfires A magical saga, reminiscent of the best of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Beautifully written in a refreshing style, and illustrated by one of Britain’s leading graphic artists, this is the story of four friends, their picaresque lives, and the moral choices that confront them. An influential and wildly popular novel in Sweden, After the Campfires transports you into new worlds. Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-04-4 Pages: 594 8ľ"x6ľ" US$ 19.95 More Info...
Hartmut Lange (Germany) Missing Persons The themes of absence pervade all the works in this unsettling, unusual collection. In The Poster, a German bank director, strolling through a park in Vienna, adds his name to a list of missing persons, thereby writing himself out of his humdrum life. Boarding a train to Venice, his travels intersect with that of a hooded stranger... Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-27-3 Pages: 192 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
Malin Lindroth (Sweden) Night Watch A night-nurse in a psychiatric ward is on duty at the bedside of a sleeping mother who has confessed to the criminal murder of her own child. The nurse finds herself strangely drawn to the silent patient, with whom no word is ever exchanged. But thoughts about the patient's deeds trigger a series of disturbing memories... Winner of the AFTONBLADET AWARD, SWEDEN Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-39-7 Pages: 198 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
Alessandra Montrucchio (Italy) Cardiofitness At the age of twenty-six are you grown up or not? Four friends go to the gym to rid their soul of the poison of routine. And there, Stefania meets Stefano, whom she calls Tendina, with his long and delicate neck, who gives off the scent of sandalwood. And why should she resist anyway? A relationship between a fifteen-year-old and a twenty-six-year-old is hardly ridiculous, it’s not even a case of pedophilia. It’s a relationship, that’s all. Hardcover: ISBN: 1-902881-03-6 Pages: 192 8ľ"x6ľ" US$ 19.95 More Info...
Romana Petri (Italy) An Umbrian War Set in the hills and countryside of Umbria, a sister and brother find themselves drawn into the Resistance during the final days of the Second World War. It is the last two years of war. The Germans are on the run, the local fascists engaged in a final desperate spree of cruelty and arrogance. Inside Alcina's heart there is fear; fear of loneliness and the terrible fear of death. She knows too much... Winner of the 1998 RAPALLO CARIGE PRIZE and the PALMI PRIZE. Finalist for the STREGA PRIZE, ITALY Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-14-1 Pages: 266 8˝"x6˝" US$ 15.95 More Info...
Romana Petri (Italy) Other People's Fathers Her father, Romana Petri wrote, "was different from all other men, because he knew great joy, the sudden overturning of grief, unreasoning optimism." But he was not like the fathers of other people. And it was this sad revelation that led her to write this book, part stories, part reminiscence. Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-38-9 Pages: 126 8˝"x6˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
Romana Petri (Italy) The Flying Island The Flying Island is an account of an Italian woman's solitary stay on the Azores. The islanders are poised between their open generosity and simplicity, their traditions bordering on the magic and the supernatural; and the brute realism of the new American culture imported with returning workers who increasingly view the Azores not as home but as holiday destination... Paperback: ISBN: 1-902881-64-8 8˝"x5˝" US$ 12.95 More Info...
The Ballad of the Low Lifes by Enrico Remmert Meet Vittorio and Milo, two young grifters living by their wits in modern Turin, getting by on petty scams and swindles. The two young men have kept an idea in a back drawer for years, the Big C - the Big Con. They're sure it will make them rich, but so far they haven't been able to get it off the ground. Enter Milo's uncle Grissino, a con-man with years of experience... Hardcover: ISBN: 1-59264-054-0 Pages: c.250 8ľ"x5ľ" US$19.95 Publication date: June 2004 More Info...