Peter Hammer Verlag

Founded in Wuppertal in 1966, the Peter Hammer Verlag has a very distinctive profile, specialising as it does in literature from Africa and Latin America, and in particularly beautiful illustrated books for both children and adults. It is small by comparison with the great publishing houses, and medium-sized by comparison with the smallest ones; it has always been independent. It has published literature from and about Africa and Latin America right from its earliest days. It made writers such as Ernesto Cardenal, Eduardo Galeano, Gioconda Belli, Chinua Achebe, Aniceti Kitereza and Ahmadou Kourouma well known in Germany, while supplementing its belles-lettres output with non-fiction books on political issues relating to the southern continents, and ethnology books produced by Edition Trickster. An extensive range of children’s books was developed in the 1990s, and in this regard the picture books of Wolf Erlbruch did much to enhance the worldwide reputation of this aspect of the Peter Hammer Verlag’s output. Alongside Wolf Erlbruch, Peter Hammer authors such as Nadia Budde, Wiebke Oeser and Henning Wagenbreth have also all been awarded numerous prizes.