Ammann: Zurich publishing house on the brink of collapse
The Zurich-based Ammann Publishing House will cease its publishing operations in mid-2010. Declining revenues and the lack of a successor led Egon Ammann and Marie-Luise Flammersfeld, who founded the publishing house in 1981, to make this decision.
Publishers Marie-Luise Flammersfeld and Egon Ammann announced yesterday, Monday, that they will cease their publishing activities at the end of June 2010. In an interview with the NZZ, the publishers said that a worrying decline in income had become apparent. According to Egon Ammann, he no longer had the strength to face up to the difficulties. On the other hand, they had not succeeded in finding a successor who would have continued the publishing house in the long term with similar commitment and in their interests. A sale to a larger German group publishing house was out of the question in order to prevent dilution of the publishing name.
The closure affects seven employees in Zurich as well as authors from Switzerland and Germany - including Ruth Schweikert, Matthias Zschokke and Thomas Hürlimann, Ulrich Peltzer, Navid Kermani and Ulla Lenze. They will have to find a new publisher. The extensive backlist, on the other hand, will be sold to interested publishers as far as possible or will continue to be managed. In spring 2010, the publishing house will publish its final program, including a volume of material on Thomas Hürlimann, which will also reflect the history of the publishing house, as well as the last volumes of the Machado edition and the new translation of Dostoyevsky by Svetlana Geier ("The Gambler").
The closure affects seven employees in Zurich as well as authors from Switzerland and Germany - including Ruth Schweikert, Matthias Zschokke and Thomas Hürlimann, Ulrich Peltzer, Navid Kermani and Ulla Lenze. They will have to find a new publisher. The extensive backlist, on the other hand, will be sold to interested publishers as far as possible or will continue to be managed. In spring 2010, the publishing house will publish its final program, including a volume of material on Thomas Hürlimann, which will also reflect the history of the publishing house, as well as the last volumes of the Machado edition and the new translation of Dostoyevsky by Svetlana Geier ("The Gambler").
