Writer Hans Koning–author of thirteen novels, ten non-fiction books, three plays, two translations, and a children‚Äôs book–died on April 13 at home in Easton, Connecticut. Born in Amsterdam, he came to the United States in 1951, and published his first novel, The Affair, in 1958.

In 2001, we published his thirteenth novel, Zeeland or Elective Concurrences. Shortly thereafter, we began the Hans Koning reprint series with the idea of bringing all of Koning’s works back into print. Beginning in 2002, NewSouth released Koning’s The Affair, An American Romance, The Petersburg-Cannes Express, A Walk with Love and Death, and I Know What I’m Doing; the latest, The Kleber Flight, originally published in 1981, was released by NewSouth in fall 2006.

Koning was among the first authors signed by NewSouth Books. A lively and lasting friendship developed based on mutual respect for the causes we cared about and our commitment to taking chances in the twin worlds of politics and publishing. To our way of thinking, Koning was quintessentially engage. He eschewed mere dinner-table rhetoric about the issues of the day in favor of personal activism that included his resistance work in WWII, anti-Vietnam War activities, and the hosting of a radio program called “Literary Discord.” His convictions about human rights animated his life and his stories, often obscuring the elegance of his pen and the luminous prose moments he delivered in which our human and sexual connectedness are described. His perspective on the place where politics and history and personal choice intersect was unique and affecting. Curious, articulate, and writing to the end, NewSouth is profoundly honored to represent him.

Hans Koning is remembered in The New York Times, the International Herald, and the Hartford Courant, as well as by his family at his website, www.hanskoning.net.

As the newest reprint of Hans Koning’s tale of love in the nuclear age, The Kleber Flight, continues to gain attention, more insight into Koning’s work can be found in the interview he conducted with Blogcritics.org‘s Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti in December, 2004. In this far-reaching interview, Koning talks about his difficulty getting his first novel published (fourteen novels later), his time as Stokley Carmichael’s bodyguard, his world travels, and his run for office. Read the full interview at Blogcritics.org.

The newest book in the Hans Koning reprint series, The Kleber Flight, and all the titles in the series, are available directly from NewSouth Books or by calling toll-free (866) 639-7688. They can also be ordered from Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

As the newest book in the Hans Koning reprint series, The Kleber Flight, begins to arrive in bookstores, we bring you a link to Koning’s own essay in the New York Times “Writers on Writing” series, where he discusses his desire for a “subterranean” message in each of his books. As Koning writes:

What I believe [a novel] needs is evidence that its writer has gone through an awareness of the human condition, its comedy and melodrama, its mystery and tragedy. Isn’t it that awareness that can give the crucial dimension to the most banal occurrences we may want to describe? … A reader (and a reviewer) should find just as much in it as he or she is prepared to accept. Until one night, perhaps, when such a reader, for instance of my “Kleber Flight,” cannot get to sleep, and then suddenly the snake would raise its head, and he or she would start wondering if there was, after all, sense to what its hero (or antihero) was about on his destructive flight in that little Piper Tomahawk airplane. Or so I hope.

Read the full text of Hans Koning’s essay at the New York Times.

The Kleber Flight, and all the titles in the NewSouth Koning reprint series, are available directly from NewSouth Books online or by calling toll-free (866) 639-7688. They can also be ordered from Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

As excitement grows about the release of the newest title in the Hans Koning reprint series, The Kleber Flight, I’m reminded of the Publisher’s Weekly article that ran on Hans and NewSouth back in 2001, which nicely summed up the mission of the then-new NewSouth. From the article:

Hailed by PW as Koning’s breakout book (Forecasts, Sept. 21), [Zeeland, or Elective Concurrences] chronicles the parallel war experiences of a 19th-century French grandfather and his 20th-century grandson. NewSouth will simultaneously release a trade paperback reprint of Koning’s first novel, The Affair, originally published by Knopf in 1958, when the Amsterdam-born writer’s name was still Koningsberger. The reprint, [Publisher Suzanne La Rosa] noted, inaugurates a series that will revive all of his previous novels over a six-year period.

Why would a small southern press seeking to define itself undertake such a commitment to a long-established Northeasterner? La Rosa explained, “Though NewSouth is based in the South and is committed to our region, our greatest commitment is to good literature. Koning gives us geographic reach, and makes it clear that the South is not so separate from the world that the issues Koning addresses so eloquently are not worth examining.”

The Kleber Flight is sixth in the Hans Koning reprint series, with more to come. Read more about the Hans Koning reprint series here, or at the author’s website, hanskoning.net.

The Kleber Flight, and all the titles in the NewSouth reprint series, are available directly from NewSouth Books by calling toll-free (866) 639-7688. They can also be ordered from Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

NewSouth Books is pleased to annouce the release of the newest book in our Hans Koning reprint series, The Kleber Flight. Koning is the prolific and critically acclaimed of Zeeland, or Elective Concurrences (NewSouth), who has also worked as a staff reporter for both the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly. He has published thirteen novels—several of which have been made into movies—ten non-fiction books, three plays, two translations, and a children’s book.

In celebration of Zeeland, NewSouth began the Hans Koning reprint series, bringing all of Koning’s noted works back into print. The first two titles, The Affair, and An American Romance, were published in the spring and fall of 2002. Next came A Walk with Love and Death (made into a motion picture by John Huston in the year 1970), followed by I Know What I’m Doing in the spring of 2005. Now, Koning’s classic story of love in the nuclear age, The Kleber Flight, joins these vaunted titles.

In The Kleber Flight, when the mysterious Jean More dies in the small plane she learned to fly just two weeks earlier, she leaves her paramour David Lum with seemingly unanswerable questions: How had she come by the scars on her body? Why was she wanted by the FBI? What was the hidden purpose of her final flight? The puzzle of Jean’s past leads David overseas to Paris, where he finds Jean’s long-lost daughter and discovers the horror that connects Jean to a nuclear power plant. David’s own life ultimately becomes forfeit as he finds himself adopting Jean’s secret mission as his own.

The Kleber Flight, and all the titles in the NewSouth reprint series, are available directly from NewSouth Books by calling toll-free (866) 639-7688. They can also be ordered from Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

Visit author Hans Koning at hanskoning.net.