Antje Kunstmann, pioneering Munich publisher, dies at 77

Antje Kunstmann, who founded the independent Kunstmann publishing house in 1976, has died at the age of 77. BR reported that she died last Wednesday.

Kunstmann was a pioneer in Germany’s then male-dominated book industry, but rarely highlighted her role. When told that she was one of the country’s first female publishers, she reportedly replied: “Objectively, perhaps I was.”

Although she handed over the day-to-day management of the publishing house to her son in 2023, Kunstmann continued to seek out new voices, subjects and themes until the end of her life. The publishing house is due to mark its 50th anniversary this autumn, an occasion she will no longer be able to attend.

She maintained close relationships with authors and colleagues and ran the Munich publishing house for decades as if it were a family. In her view, the personal involvement of staff was particularly important in an increasingly anonymous world, because it encouraged people to engage with authors and their books.

Kunstmann also had a strong interest in humour. The publishing house published cartoonists Achim Greser and Heribert Lenz, humorous poetry by Fritz Eckenga and drawings by Marie Marcks. Her first acquisition was a book by Marcks, whose cartoons she had admired in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. That book later became the starting point for the publishing house’s “Masters of Comic Art” series.

Among the authors whose careers Kunstmann helped establish as best-selling writers were Kristof Magnusson and Axel Hacke. Her programme also included feminist poetry, illustrated children’s and cookery books, and internationally acclaimed novels from the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking worlds.

For Kunstmann, literary relevance was as important as social relevance. She addressed environmental and political issues through books and published the transcripts of the NSU trial in 2018. She said the extensive edition could preserve the proceedings for future readers and provide insight into the history of German reunification and right-wing extremism.

In 2022, Kunstmann received the Kurt Wolff Prize at the Leipzig Book Fair. The award recognised the publishing house’s ability to remain independent through successive crises in the book industry.