Hamburg Noir Paperback by Jan Karsten

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2025-08-05)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 256 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781636141152
• Item Weight: 289.17 grams
• Dimensions: 8.24 x 5.24 x 0.81 cm

The historic northern port city of Hamburg now joins Berlin as the Akashic Noir Series continues its foray across the German landscape

From the introduction by Jan Karsten:

The many facets of Hamburg’s ambivalent identity, forged over centuries, are on full display in the stories collected in this anthology. Here, we have assembled some of the city’s finest and best-known writers, luminaries in the world of crime fiction and German literature, featuring multiple recipients of the German Crime Fiction Award and the Hubert Fichte Prize, among others. Relative newcomers rub shoulders with established authors, some of whose work now spans decades . . .

The fourteen stories in this collection all look to where good (crime) fiction has always looked: toward lesser-known settings and living situations, repeatedly drawing our attention to lives overlooked, the lost souls and the powerless who have slipped through the cracks of commerce. The perspectives on the metropolis are as diverse as the writers’ backgrounds, resulting in a varied depiction of Hamburg as a colorful hodgepodge of people inhabiting a lively city of millions. Between water and spirits, between power and oblivion, between dream and reality. 

BRAND-NEW STORIES BY: Nora Luttmer, Till Raether, Matthias Wittekindt, Ingvar Ambjørnsen, Bela B Felsenheimer, Jasmin Ramadan, Frank Göhre, Timo Blunck, Katrin Seddig, Tina Uebel, Zoë Beck, Brigitte Helbling, Kai Hensel, and Robert Brack. Translated by Noah Harley, Geoffrey C. Howes, and Paul David Young.

About the Author

JAN KARSTEN is the publisher and editor of CulturBooks, an award-winning independent publishing house based in Germany that specializes in contemporary international literature and crime fiction and has twice won the Deutsche Krimipreis award. Karsten also translates literature from English, including works by Keith Gessen, Carl Nixon, and Kathryn Scanlan. He lives in Hamburg.