Sold to Sweden: Arno Geiger’s HAPPY SECRET

Ten weeks at the top of the bestseller list. Tens of thousands of copies sold. Swedish rights just licensed to the wonderful Lindelöws in Sweden – Arno Geiger’s THE HAPPY SECRET published by Hanser Verlag in January will make news this spring. Stay tuned!

Early one morning, a young man sets off on his bike along the city streets. Where he goes and what he does remains a secret. When he returns, he’s exhausted – but often happy. For decades, Arno Geiger lived a double life. Now he tells us all about it.

‘When you’re young, life’s a piece of cake.’ And yet we all have to find our path through it. Arno Geiger tells the story of how he personally found his way. Of how he did things others decided not to. Of how convoluted, painful and surprising our paths can be, including the one to true love. Of how he hit a wall as a writer before he found success. And of his mounting worries about his parents.

This is a book filled with life experience and street knowledge. It shows an understanding of human nature, love and sorrow. Incisively, and with great humour and openness, Arno Geiger writes of his endeavours, disappointments, discoveries and rejections that culminated in happy success.

• a SPIEGEL bestseller: at the top of the list since publication
• intense press coverage
• rights sold to Sweden (Lindelöws)

“The book is so superbly effortless, warm and wise, so determined, skillful and free, that reading it is a genuine benefit to you as a person…The tone, the style, the content, it’s all just right, a trio without any attitude or artificiality, imbued with feeling. A heart beats here, which longs to communicate.”
Eberhard Rathgeb, Die Zeit

“Exciting and moving, Arno Gieger recounts his decade’s long double life as an author and collector of scraps of paper in this unusually and unusually intimate novel…A blast of insight in a book!”
Denis Scheck, Tagesspiegel

“‘The Happy Secret’ is a narrative that extolls the power of human kindness and optimism, a rare find in contemporary literature. To make it this far, Arno Geiger has had some ups and downs—an encouragement for all those who think they can’t make it.”
Claudia Ingenhoven, mdr kultur (Book of the Week)

“The story is fascinating, as is Geiger’s open-hearted way of telling it. Immediately after reading it, you want to dive into all of his previous works. And the sight of full recycling bins suddenly provokes an unexpected tingling.”
Judith Hoffmann, ORF, Ö1

“In his new book, Arno Geiger has written an autobiography of coincidence. In the happy secret of his voyages through the wastepaper baskets of Vienna, the improbable conspires with the possible, the great with the great nothing.”
Paul Jandl, NZZ

“Now Arno Geiger has given up his ‘happy secret.’ For there is also a kind of freedom in openness. In doing so, he gives his readers a great gift.”
Holger Heimann, SR2