Ana Paula Hisayama

I was born in Brazil and have worked in publishing since 1994. I am a foreign rights/acquisition manager at Companhia das Letras where I have been since 1998.

My primary focus of interest is to know more about the German market as a whole (authors, publishers, agents, promotion, distribution, libraries). German authors and German-speaking authors are not a novelty at Companhia, we have been publishing them since the company started (H. M. Enzensberger, Thomas Bernhard, Goethe, Sebald, Kafka, Elias Canetti, Cornelia Funke, Wolf Erlbruch, to name just a few). But Germany for us has been a growing source of Eastern European authors we have never heard of before, and whose works are first published in German. Part of my work involves submitting Brazilian titles abroad and having more information on the German publishers would surely help this enormously. Companhia das Letras was founded in 1986 and has five imprints today: Companhia das Letras publishes quality fiction and non-fiction for adults (there are also a few photography books); Cia das Letras publishes YA titles; Companhia das Letrinhas publishes children’s books; Quadrinhos na Companhia is where graphic novels and comics for all ages are; Companhia de Bolso publishes our best-sellers in pocket editions. This year around 250 titles will be published.