Bourgeois coldness refers to an affective strategy that offers an explanation for how self-preservation works. Bourgeois coldness is one of the most advanced affective and aesthetic forms of preserving the structure of the colonial status quo. It creates an affective shelter in the world, unencroached by the immediate consequences of its many catastrophes. It functions like air conditioning—a complex technology which reliably stabilizes the climate until those inside consider it natural. Bourgeois spaces—institutional and affective—stay cool and pleasant while it’s burning outside.
Henrike Kohpeiß
Bourgeois coldness describes how bourgeois subjects shield themselves from the violence they themselves cause. This book examines how racist affective structures are formed along the histories of colonialism and also Enlightenment philosophy. Canonical critical theory by Adorno and Horkheimer enters a dialogue with Black studies through philosophers such as Hartman, Moten and Ferreira da Silva.
978-1-7395161-2-3
21.6 x 13.9 cm
296 pp.
Paperback
September 2025
About the author
Henrike Kohpeiß is a philosopher working on social and political philosophy, critical theory, affect studies, black studies and feminist philosophy. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the CRC 'Affective Societies' at Free University, Berlin. Together with Philipp Wüschner, she hosts a monthly conversations on 'Feelings at the end of the world' at Volksbühne Berlin. Occasionally, she engages in artistic collaborations in dance and performance, mostly as a dramaturge or writer, sometimes as a performer. Bourgeois Coldness is her first book.
Photo: Inke Johannsen
About the translator
Grace Nissan is the author of The Utopians (Ugly Duckling Presse) and The City Is Lush With / Obstructed Views (DoubleCross Press), as well as the translator of War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets (New Directions) and kochanie, today i bought bread by Uljana Wolf (World Poetry Books). Their translations of Yevgenia Belorusets were presented in the 59th Venice Biennale, as well as in the accompanying publication In the Face Of War (Isolarii). They are the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Translation Fellowship to translate Austrian poet Ann Cotten’s Banned! An Epic Poem into English.
Dunja, having finally gotten a little acclaim and money from her writing career, decides it’s time to return home to the Adriatic coast and solve the mystery of her brother’s death that set in motion the suicide of her father.
It is not going well. In moderate physical decline, and with an immoderate weed habit, the going is arduous and the people inscrutable. Her old friends—those who never left—have had years to forget or convince themselves they don’t remember.
Dunja must contend with her own ambivalences, desire and disgust, curiosity and fear, as she begins to doubt her rationale for returning.
Flood Tide is a sweeping exploration of the violence born from human limitation and indecision. It is as elegantly plotted and psychologically deft as a Ross Macdonald mystery, and has the idiosyncratic virtuosity of Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season.
978-1-7395161-5-4
21.6 x 13.9 cm
244 pp.
Paperback
October 2025
About the author
Ana Schnabl (b. 1985) is a Slovene writer and editor. She writes for several Slovene media outlets and is a monthly columnist for The Guardian. Her collection of short stories Untied (Razvezani, Beletrina, 2017) was met with critical acclaim and won the Best Debut Award at the Slovene Book Fair, followed by two further nominations and the Edo Budiša Award in Croatia; the short story collection is translated to German and Serbian. Three years later Schnabl published her first novel Masterpiece (Mojstrovina, Beletrina, 2020), that was well received by readers at home and abroad – she toured Europe with the English, German and Serbian translations of the book, which included a residence in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, and the first European Writer’s Festival in London. The novel was given favourable reviews and mentions in numerous Austrian, German and English media, including the Los Angeles Review of Books and the New York Review of Books, and was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. Her second novel Flood Tide (Plima, Beletrina, 2022) was nominated for the Slovene Kresnik Award. Her fourth novel is September (Beletrina, 2024).
Photo: Luka Dakskobler
About the translator
Rawley Grau has been translating literary works from Slovenian for over twenty years, including by such first-rate novelists as Dušan Šarotar, Mojca Kumerdej, Sebastijan Pregelj, and Vlado Žabot. Five of his translations have been longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, while his translations of Šarotar’s Panorama and Billiards at the Hotel Dobray were shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. He has also translated poetry by Miljana Cunta, Miklavž Komelj, Janez Ramoveš, and Tomaž Šalamun, among others. In 2021, he received the prestigious Lavrin Diploma from the Association of Slovenian Literary Translators. Translations from other languages include A Science Not for the Earth: Selected Poems and Letters by the Russian poet Yevgeny Baratynsky, which received the AATSEEL prize for Best Scholarly Translation, and The Long Coming of the Fire, a volume of poems by the modernist Macedonian poet Aco Šopov, which he co-translated with Christina E. Kramer. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, he has lived in Ljubljana since the early 2000s.
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Slovene (Beletrina)
Holy Smoke
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£ 11.99
Available soon
Holy SmokeFanny Howe
Dec 2025
Holy Smoke
Fanny Howe
978-1-0684395-1-3
21.6 x 13.9 cm
104 pp.
Paperback
December 2025
About the author
Fanny Howe is the author of more than twenty books of poetry and prose. She has taught literature and writing for many years. She is currently Professor Emerita in Literature at the University of California at San Diego. She has mentored a generation of American poets, activists and scholars working at the intersection of experimental and metaphysical forms of thinking.