Sample Translations English

Worlds Apart

Sample Translations English
  • Reviewed by New Books in German (Autumn 2021)
  • English sample translation available here
  • More than one million copies sold of Die Mittagsfrau 
  • “A powerful and moving book.” — Daily Telegraph on Back to Back 

Born in East Berlin, Julia is eight when her mother takes her and her sisters to the West, first to the Marienfelde refugee camp and then to rural Schleswig-Holstein. Life in their chaotic farmhouse becomes impossible for her and she moves out to West Berlin, aged thirteen. Living on benefits and cleaning jobs, she finds her father and loses him shortly afterwards, finishes school and meets Stephan, the first love of her life. 

"The art of Julia Franck in "Worlds Apart" is the first-person narrator's tone, which is completely free of self-pity and bitterness." — Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"This book (in which the characters have the same names as in real life) has made truth its duty and beauty its highlight [...]." — Die Zeit 

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Rights sold to

HR (Fraktura) | NL (Wereldbibliotheek) | Spanish World (Tusquets)


Rights to previous titles sold to: (Die Mittagsfrau): USA (Grove) | UK (Harvill Secker) | ALB (Skanderbeg) | ARM (Antares) | BG (Atlantis) | BY (Chursik) | CZ (Jota) | DK (Lindhardt) | E (Sotelo Blanco) (Galician) | E (Grup Ed. 62) (Catalan) | E (Tusquets) | EST (Eesti Raamat) | F (Flammarion) | FIN (Avain) | GE (Ibis) | GR (Katstaniotis) | HR (Fraktura) | HU (Geopen) | I (Lettere) | IL (Matar) | JP (Kawade) | KOR (Hakgojae) | LT (Alma Littera) | MAZ (Ili-Ili) | NL (Wereldbibliotheek) | NOR (Cappelen Damm) | PL (WAB) | PRC (Business) (compl. chinese) | PRC (People's Literature) (simple chinese) | PT (Nova Fronteira) | RO (Humanitas) | SE (Bonniers) | SLO (Modrijan) | SRB (Samizdat B 92) | TR (Alef) | UAE (NCT) | VN (Viet Nam Women's) 

  • Publisher: FISCHER Taschenbuch
  • Release: 29.03.2023
  • 368 pages
  • Format: Hard Cover
Cover Download Welten auseinander
Welten auseinander
Mathias Bothor
© Mathias Bothor

Julia Franck

Julia Franck was born in Berlin in 1970. She studied German literature, Philosophy and Anthropology of Native Americans at the FU Berlin.
She has received several awards, including the Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize in 2004 and the Roswitha Medal of the City of Gandersheim in 2005.
She spent the year 2005 in the Villa Massimo in Rome.

Julia Franck has published several novels, among which the novel ›Die Mittagsfrau‹ (2007), for which she received the German Book Award 2007 and which has been translated into 34 languages. 

Her novel ›Lagerfeuer‹ (2003) was turned into a movie in 2012, directed by Christian Schwochow.