Baobab is the name of the monkey-bread tree, and in its shade people tell stories. Baobab is also the name of the book programme releasing picture books, children's stories and youth novels from all over the world in German translation. To date, almost 100 books from 37 countries have been published representing particularly minorities and marginalised communities. On this page you will find an overview of our more recent publications.

→ Catalogue A–Z

Yu, Pei-yun / Zhou, Jian-xin
A Graphic Novel from Taiwan – Volume 1
Translated into German by Johannes Fiederling
© 2023 Baobab Books

Kun-lin is barely five years old when the Tsai family is surprised by a devastating earthquake on their way to an ancestral grave in April 1935. Tens of thousands of people die, many are seriously injured, houses damaged or completely destroyed. The Tsais are lucky, all survive.
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Yu, Pei-yun / Zhou, Jian-xin
A graphic novel from Taiwan – Volume 2
Translated into German by Johannes Fiederling
© 2023 Baobab Books

Almost a hundred years have passed since Tsai Kun-lin's birth. In long conversations, he told the author and the illustrator about his life: about his childhood, the political events during the Second World War, his years in captivity, his later work as a journalist and comic publisher, and his commitment to democracy and human rights.
Shortly before his twentieth birthday, Kun-lin is taken away for interrogation. Under pressure, he makes a forced confession. In the eyes of the regime, he has been reading the wrong books - the reading circle at his school is classified as an «illegal organisation».
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WEI Jie / LI Xiaoguang
A picture book from China
Translated from Chinese by Brigitte Koller Abdi
© 2023 Baobab Books

What a lush summer: the gardens and fields are thriving. Large melons ripen next to slender cucumbers, the plum tree bears abundant fruit, the beans climb high ... Life in this lovely mountain valley seems almost paradisiacal. But in the midst of this splendour, it is time to say goodbye: The family that tends this garden will soon move to the city ...
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Anne-Ruth Wertheim
My childhood years in the internment camp on Java
Translated from Dutch by Ingrid Ostermann
© 2023 Baobab Books

When Anne-Ruth Wertheim was born in Jakarta in 1934 to a Dutch family, Indonesia was a Dutch colony. The Dutch had placed themselves at the top of society, the native Indonesian population at the bottom. This dubious hierarchy changed abruptly when Japanese troops invaded in 1942 and deported the Dutch people to camps, children included. Anne-Ruth is eight years old, when she is forced into the camp. Together with her siblings she depicts the desperate conditions in miniature drawings. This is her story …
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Kätlin Kaldmaa / Jaan Rõõmus
An extraordinary girl from Estonia
Translated from Estonian by Maximilian Murmann
© 2022 Baobab Books

Literally every child in Estonia knows Lydia: the poems of the author Lydia Koidula are part of the school curriculum in the country. The life story of the writer, born in 1843, is so extraordinary that it absolutely must be told. → More about the book

 

Romana Romanyschyn / Andrij Lessiw
A fairy tale from Ukraine
Bilingual German – Ukrainian
Translated from Ukrainian by Kati Brunner
© 2022 Baobab Books

Grandpa Andruschka is a hard-working gardener. In spring he rushes into the garden with shovel and rake, and in no time the bed is ready. Gently he places the seed of a turnip in the soil, carries the water every day and watches the sprout grow ... → More about the book