Wir hätten uns alles gesagt
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Sample Translations English

We'd Have Told Each Other Everything

Sample Translations English
  • Judith Hermann is one of Germany's most prestigious and sucessfull contemporary authors
  • Her work is translated into more than 35  languages
  • She has sold over 1.5 million books
  • Her novel Daheim sold over 100,000 copies and reached the top of the Spiegel bestseller list.
  • Recommendation by New Books in German available here (Spring 2023)
  • English sample translation available here

“A master storyteller.” — The Independent, London

A childhood spent in unconventional circumstances, the divided Berlin, family ties and affinities, long, happy summers at the seaside. Judith Hermann discusses her writing and her life and what holds her writing and life together and connects them. Truth, invention, and secrets - where does a story begin, and where does it end? How dependable is our memory, how closely do our dreams resemble reality?

In her novels and stories, Judith Hermann captures an entire attitude towards life: with a clear, poetic voice, she talks about the sensitive core of life, friendship, departure, and freedom. 

"In this book, she makes it clear in an admirable way how masterfully she understands how to transform even the difficult, barely bearable, deathly dark into great literature." - Der Spiegel, Wolfgang Höbel

"I am thrilled, blown away." - WDR3 Mosaik, Denis Scheck

"As an intimate workshop tour [...] recommended to anyone in search of what makes up the typical Hermann sound." - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Emilia Kröger


"a crafty literary performance of revealing and concealing, of hidden showing and revealing hiding" and "In her seventh book, Judith Hermann shows us a new, heartbreaking side without falling prey to kitsch [...] no small feat." - Süddeutsche Zeitung, Sigrid Löffler

"With Judith Hermann, you want to read every line, you don't want to miss anything." and "one of the most interesting books this spring" - Deutschlandfunk, Jan Drees

"Judith Hermann's book has an incredible energy and beauty and brutality and radiance. On every page you feel the ruthlessness and honesty and necessity of this text." - Die Zeit, Volker Weidermann

"a touchingly personal book" - NDR Kultur, Katrin Krämer

"Judith Hermann's books are unswerving explorations of human situations", Neue Zürcher Zeitung

"She has this sound that only seems as if it were approximate and hovering, but in reality it is the result of exact prose: not a word too much."Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung

“A master storyteller.” — The Independent, London

Contact Foreign Rights
Sample Translations
Rights sold to

FR (Albin Michel), DK (Batzer), CZ (Vetrne Mlyny), IRL (Mercier Press), N (Pelikanen), NL (Meridiaan), SE (Weyler), UK (Granta)

  • Publisher: S. FISCHER
  • Release: 15.03.2023
  • 192 pages
Cover Download Wir hätten uns alles gesagt
Wir hätten uns alles gesagt
Andreas Reiberg

Judith Hermann

Judith Hermann was born in Berlin in 1970. Her debut story collection Sommerhaus, später (1998) was extremely well received. It was then followed in 2003 by the story collection Nichts als Gespenster, and several of the stories contained in the latter were adapted for film in 2007. In 2009, she published Alice, five short stories that received international acclaim. Her first novel, Aller Liebe Anfang, came out in 2014. It was followed in 2016 by the short story collection Lettipark, which was awarded the Danish Blixen Prize for Short Stories. Hermann has received numerous awards for her work, including the Kleist Prize and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. Her novel Daheim was published in spring 2021. It was nominated for the Leipziger Book Fair Prize and received the Bremen Literature Prize in 2022. The author lives and writes in Berlin.