As a pioneer German-speaking literary agency, Liepman has been successfully bringing authors and publishers together since 1949, both in the German-speaking territories and worldwide.
ABOUT
Our competent and versatile team is dedicated to literature. We look after our authors, their books, their rights and financial interests with experience, passion and great dedication. We are well established and connected in the industry, attend the most important book fairs and maintain a large network with German-speaking and international publishers, editors and specialized co-agents. Our service focuses on the following areas:
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We discover, advise and support German-speaking authors comprehensively, from the first idea and the manuscript onwards. In fiction, we stand for literary voices, but also for well-made commercial fiction and suspense. In non-fiction, we look for that special narrative non-fiction or for authors who engage in debate, who explain us the world in a sound and vivid way.
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We are looking after several large and important literary estates, keeping them alive with foresight and a sense of tradition. These include classics such as Anne Frank, Norbert Elias and Erich Fromm, as well as Nobel Prize laureate for Literature, Elias Canetti just to name a few.
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For foreign publishers and agencies, especially from Anglo-American countries, we are a professional partner for the German language territory, with a large backlist and the experience that comes with it.
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Last but not least, we represent a fine list of established and renowned international authors from different language territories with their translation rights worldwide. We work together with local co-agents in most territories and directly in selected few.
Agency history
The Liepman Literary Agency was founded in 1949 by Dr Ruth Liepman-Lilienstein (1909–2001) and Heinz Liepman (1905–1966), in Hamburg. Both had spent the war years in exile. Ruth Lilienstein had gone into hiding in Holland, Heinz Liepman had emigrated to the USA, where he worked as a writer and journalist and established important contacts with US publishers and authors. He later brought Norman Mailer with The Naked and the Dead, James Jones with From Here to Eternity, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Richard Wright, among others, to the agency.
While Heinz Liepman returned to writing exclusively, lawyer Ruth Liepman ran the agency by herself bringing other big names to Germany, including Arthur Miller, J.D. Salinger, Vladimir Nabokov, James Baldwin and Arthur Hailey.
The agency has been based in Zurich since 1961 and is well established in the industry. From 1981, long-time employees Eva Koralnik and Ruth Weibel ran the agency until it entered its third generation in 2013, with Marc Koralnik as the new owner.
Ruth Liepman’s beautiful memoir Maybe Luck Isn’t Just Chance tells you more about the agency’s history and the very eventful life of this grande dame of literary agenting, spanning almost an entire century.
Ruth Liepman, Ruth Weibel and Eva Koralnik, Zurich 1982
CLIENTS
Agencies
Adams Literary
Vicky Bijur Literary Agency
Blake Friedmann Literary Agency
Maria Carvainis Agency
Teresa Chris Literary Agency
CookeMcDermid
Janis A. Donnaud & Associates
Frances Goldin Literary Agency
The Grayhawk Agency
The Deborah Harris Agency non-exclusive
Vanessa Holt
Inked Entertainment
Melanie Jackson Agency
The Martell Agency
Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency
Ayesha Pande Literary
Shelley Power Literary Agency
Susan Schulman Literary Agency
Nancy Stauffer Associates
The Stephanie Tade Agency
Transatlantic Agency
Union Literary
Westwood Creative Artists
Marian Young
Susanna Zevi Agenzia Letteraria
Publishers
Breakwater Books
Gallimard non-exclusive
Éditions Grasset non-exclusive
Groupe Librex
Harvard University Press
Haus Publishing
Henry Holt & Company
Liana Levi
New Harbinger
Peter Owen Publishers
Restless Books
SERVICE
Submissions
We appreciate your interest in our agency. Please note that we only represent international authors already published in their original language. We only accept manuscripts by German-language authors.
Suzanne de Roche
suzanne.deroche@liepmanagency.com
Permissions
A permission letter is required to reproduce copyright protected material. To submit a permission request please send us an e‑mail with the following information:
- text passages (including author, title, year of publication and page count)
- title of your publication, print run, sales price
We charge a minimum permission fee of EUR 150.– plus statutory VAT. Please note that the handling time can take up to four weeks.
Theresa Lang
theresa.lang@liepmanagency.com
International Co-Agents
China & Taiwan
The Grayhawk Agency
Czech and Slovak Republics
Kristin Olson Literary Agency
Greece
JLM Literary Agency
Hungary
Balla – Sztojkov Literary Agency
Israel
Italy
Susanna Zevi Agenzia Letteraria
Japan
Korea
The Netherlands
Internationaal Literatuur Bureau Linda Kohn
Poland
Romania
Simona Kessler International Copyright Agency
Spain & Latin America
Casanovas & Lynch Literary Agency
and Ute Körner Literary Agent
Turkey
CONTACT
Liepman AG
Asylstrasse 92
8032 Zurich
Switzerland
+41 (0)43 268 23 80
info@liepmanagency.com
Marc Koralnik
Owner & Agent
marc.koralnik@liepmanagency.com
Hannah Nuspliger-Fosh
Leonie Kress
Suzanne de Roche
Associate Agent
suzanne.deroche@liepmanagency.com
Theresa Lang
Contracts & Administration
theresa.lang@liepmanagency.com
Annika Cornils
Royalty accounting
annika.cornils@liepmanagency.com
