120,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Overnight NZ-wide delivery 🚀 Auckland Bookstore • Open 7 days, 8:30am–5pm

Intelligence Is the Art of Remaining Faithful under Shifting Circumstances

By Alexander Kluge and Anselm Kiefer
Series: The German List
0.0 (0 reviews)
Brief Description
A layered and lyrical collaboration between two great artists—Anselm Kiefer and Alexander Kluge—that explores what it means to remain faithful amid the shifting forces of power, love, truth, and money. What holds us together in times of uncertainty? For decades, artist Anselm Kiefer and filmmaker-writer Alexander... Read More
Format: Hardback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK Please add to wishlist to be notified when back in stock

Sorry, we're currently out of stock of Intelligence Is the Art of Remaining Faithful under Shifting Circumstances. Please add to your Wishlist and we'll send you an email as soon as it's back in stock.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A layered and lyrical collaboration between two great artists—Anselm Kiefer and Alexander Kluge—that explores what it means to remain faithful amid the shifting forces of power, love, truth, and money.

What holds us together in times of uncertainty? For decades, artist Anselm Kiefer and filmmaker-writer Alexander Kluge have explored this question—both as friends and collaborators. This latest volume, Intelligence Is the Art of Remaining Faithful under Shifting Circumstances, is a bold and poetic exchange of images and texts in which they delve into the idea of reliability and its relationship to the four great forces that shape our lives: power, love, truth, and money.

Moving across history, myth, and the present day, Kiefer and Kluge ask: What is time? In a world of endless change, how do we hold on to what endures? Inspired by Hölderlin's call "to remain faithful under shifting circumstances," they use art to keep memory alive, invite the past into the present, and welcome the future before it arrives. Layered, provocative, and profoundly human, this new collaboration is a powerful meditation on what connects us—and what makes us endure.

Series: The German List

View all
  • Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor
    Alexander Kluge’s work has long grappled with the Third Reich and its aftermath, and the extermination of the Jews forms its gravitational centre. Kluge is forever reminding us to keep our present catastrophes in perspective—“calibrated”—against this historical monstrosity. Kluge’s newest work, Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor, is a book about bitter fates, both already known and...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $3599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • A Slap in the Face
    Now in paperback, the touching, timely story of an Iraqi refugee in Germany. In our era of mass migration, much of it driven by war and its aftermath, A Slap in the Face could not be more timely. It tells the story of Karim, an Iraqi refugee living in Germany whose right to asylum has been revoked in the wake...
    By Abbas Khider
    Paperback
    $2399
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Bad Sheep
    A touching and sensitive tale of love and loss that unfolds in a divided Berlin in the 1980s. Against the backdrop of West Berlin in 1987, meet Soja—a skilled typesetter, a refugee from East Germany, and a temporary florist with a generous heart. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she crosses paths with Harry—a tall, free-spirited individual with a...
    By Katja Lange-Müller
    Hardback
    $4799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Blue Jewellery
    Now in paperback, Katharina Winkler’s heartbreaking saga of a tenacious woman trapped in an abusive marriage. Blue Jewellery is private property. Not to be seen. Not to be talked about. It is worn like a bracelet around the wrists, on ribs, legs, arms. Blue jewellery is another name for the marks left on women’s bodies, inflicted by the men around...
    By Katharina Winkler
    Paperback
    $2399
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Blumenberg
    Now in paperback, from one of the most dazzling authors of contemporary German literature comes this delightful tale of a philosopher and his encounter with a supernatural lion. One night, German philosopher Hans Blumenberg returns to his study to find a shocking sight—a lion lying on the floor as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. The lion...
    By Sibylle Lewitscharoff
    Paperback
    $2399
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Hour Between Dog and Wolf
    Now in paperback, Silke Scheuermann's portrayal of intimacy and estrangement between sisters as they navigate rivalries, addiction, and shared love interests. A young woman who has been living abroad returns to her hometown of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. Her sister Ines—a beautiful, impetuous painter—who still lives there, soon appears and promptly asks for financial help. But the returning sister...
    By Silke Scheuermann
    Paperback
    $2399
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Kong's Finest Hour
    In a world full of devils, the giant ape Kong defends what he loves the most. But who and what is this undomesticated animal? Might it reside within us? As we tread confidently, is this where the earth opens up beneath us? In Kong’s Finest Hour, Alexander Kluge explores anew the accessible spaces where Kong dwells within us and in...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $6699
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Last Country
    Now in paperback, the epic tale of a violinist who must navigate the fractious world of early twentieth-century Germany. "Ruven Preuk stands apart from the village, on an August day in 1911, and listens." Thus begins an epic bildungsroman about the life of Ruven Preuk, son of the wainwright, child of a sleepy village in Germany’s north, where life is...
    By Svenja Leiber
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Mokusei!
    Two men talk in Tokyo. One, a Belgian, is a diplomat. The other, Dutch, is a photographer. What, they wonder, is the real face of Japan? How can they get beyond the European idea of the nation and its people—with its exoticism—and see Japan as it truly is? The Belgian has an idea: he helps the photographer find a model...
    By Cees Nooteboom
    Hardback
    $3599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Monsters Like Us
    A novel of two young friends growing up on divergent paths in the last days of Communist East Germany. What is it like to be young and broken in a country that is on the brink of collapse? This is what acclaimed poet and sound artist Ulrike Almut Sandig shows us in her debut novel, through the story of old...
    By Ulrike Almut Sandig
    Hardback
    $3999
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Party Fun with Kant
    Thousands upon thousands of books have been written about Immanuel Kant since his death. None, let’s be clear, have been quite like what we have here. In Party Fun with Kant, Nicolas Mahler tells the story of Kant—and his fellow serious-minded figures from the history of philosophy—with a comic edge. With his witty visual style and clever wordplay, he delves...
    By Nicolas Mahler
    Paperback
    $4099
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Prose
    “His manner of speaking, like that of all the subordinated, excluded, was awkward, like a body full of wounds, into which at any time anyone can strew salt, yet so insistent, that it is painful to listen to him,” from The Carpenter. The Austrian playwright, novelist, and poet Thomas Bernhard (1931–89) is acknowledged as among the major writers of our...
    By Thomas Bernhard
    Paperback
    $3599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781803096001

Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 05 May 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Seagull Books London Ltd

Illustration: 136 color plates

Contributors:

  • Translated by Alexander Booth

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 454g

Pages: 240

Collections

Alexander Kluge Anselm Kiefer Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Series: The German List

About the Author

Alexander Kluge is one of the major German fiction writers of the late twentieth century and an important social critic. As a filmmaker, he is credited with the launch of the New German Cinema movement. Anselm Kiefer, born in 1945 in Donaueschingen, studied law and Romance languages before turning to painting. A student of Horst Antes and Joseph Beuys, he is known for major works such as Parsifal, Zweistromland, and Mohn und Gedächtnis. In 2015, the Centre Pompidou in Paris dedicated a major retrospective to his work. Alexander Booth is a poet and translator based in Berlin.

Also by Alexander Kluge

View all
  • Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor
    Alexander Kluge’s work has long grappled with the Third Reich and its aftermath, and the extermination of the Jews forms its gravitational centre. Kluge is forever reminding us to keep our present catastrophes in perspective—“calibrated”—against this historical monstrosity. Kluge’s newest work, Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor, is a book about bitter fates, both already known and...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $3599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Kong's Finest Hour
    In a world full of devils, the giant ape Kong defends what he loves the most. But who and what is this undomesticated animal? Might it reside within us? As we tread confidently, is this where the earth opens up beneath us? In Kong’s Finest Hour, Alexander Kluge explores anew the accessible spaces where Kong dwells within us and in...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $6699
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Russia Container
    An intellectually stimulating yet accessible collection of short vignettes on Russia and Germany by Alexander Kluge. Not just in light of a contested pipeline during the war in Ukraine, but also after centuries of both exchange and rejection, Russia and Germany were and are as far away from each other as they are intrinsically linked. The geopolitical present seems critical,...
    By Alexander Kluge and Alexander Booth
    Hardback
    $5299
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • The Book of Commentary / Unquiet Garden of the Soul
    A highly engaging exploration of existential questions, written in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. The Book of Commentary / Unquiet Garden of the Soul confronts the reader with questions of existential meaning, questions rendered all the more potent by the backdrop of the Coronavirus pandemic: How fragile are we as human beings? How fragile are our societies? What is...
    By Alexander Kluge and Alexander Booth
    Hardback
    $5699
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • War Primer
    A profound exploration of the enduring impact of war in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "War is back again." So begins Alexander Kluge's latest book, War Primer, prompted by a war of aggression that, though being waged in Europe, is of global importance. Blending simple stories with multimedia and reflecting on human responses and hope, the author...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $3599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Circus Commentary
    Alexander Kluge explores the madcap, multifaceted world of the circus through a global geopolitical lens. The circus has fascinated Alexander Kluge ever since he was a child, and his devotion to it has been preserved throughout his cinematic output and his most recent literary work. In the circus, he finds both the shadow image of work and the epitome of...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $4799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor – 48 Stories for Fritz Bauer
    Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor – 48 Stories for Fritz Bauer
    Anyone Who Utters a Consoling Word Is a Traitor – 48 Stories for Fritz Bauer is a book about bitter fates—both already known and yet to unfold—and the many kinds of organised machinery built to destroy people. Alexander Kluge’s work has long grappled with the Third Reich and its aftermath, with the extermination of the Jews forming its gravitational centre....
    By Alexander Kluge and Alta L. Price
    Paperback
    $3199
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Lifespan Narratives
    A poignant exploration of post–World War II life, blending fictional and non-fictional stories that challenge traditions and reflect on the enduring impact of historical disruptions. Lifespan Narratives deals with stories, fictitious and non-fictitious, presenting a sad chronicle that questions tradition from several perspectives. Originally comprising Alexander Kluge's first book, these stories were written between 1958 and 1962, during which he...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $5499
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • The Labyrinth of Tender Force – 166 Love Stories
    The Labyrinth of Tender Force – 166 Love Stories
    Collects 166 of Alexander Kluge’s love stories previously concealed among his vast library of more than 2,000 texts. The latest offering from one of the greatest living German writers, The Labyrinth of Tender Force masterfully explores the greatest peaks and the most dreadful crevasses of passionate love through an inspired combination of Kluge’s vignettes with drawings, photographs, and other archival...
    By Alexander Kluge and Wieland Hoban
    Paperback
    $5299
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • The Long March of Basic Trust
    As past and future blur, this work from Alexander Kluge reveals the emotional and intellectual currents that drive human survival. A kaleidoscopic journey through history and the vast landscape of human emotion, The Long March of Basic Trust presents Alexander Kluge at his most expansive and incisive. Moving seamlessly across time and space, Kluge weaves a tapestry of lived and...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Hardback
    $4799
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Drilling Through Hard Boards
    Max Weber famously described politics as 'a strong, slow drilling through hard boards with both passion and judgement'. Taking this as his inspiration, Alexander Kluge brings readers yet another literary masterpiece - a kaleidoscopic meditation on the tools available to those who struggle for power. The Drill certainly embodies intelligent tenacity as a precondition for political change. But what is...
    By Alexander Kluge
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • The Principles of Life on Black Friday – Chronicle of Emotions, Notebook 1
    A highly readable and lighthearted, yet intellectually stimulating exploration of the modern human condition. This volume concerns itself with the question of time, from the description of a brief fragment passing by in a matter of minutes to stories of the unexpected stock-market crash of 1929, a once-in-a-century event that Europeans call ‘Black Friday’ because Wall Street’s collapse reached the...
    By Alexander Kluge and Martin Chalmers and Richard Langston
    Hardback
    Sold Out

Also by Anselm Kiefer

View all

More from General Fiction

View all
  • Lizzy's Pick Lizzy's Pick
    Yesteryear
    A BOLD AND BITING SATIRE. WILL HAVE YOU GASPING TO THE FINAL PAGE — Nita Prose WICKEDLY FUNNY, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND FRIGHTENINGLY PERCEPTIVE — Abigail Dean INVENTIVE, ADDICTIVE, A WILD RIDE — Ashley Audrain SHOT THROUGH WITH HUMOUR AND LACED WITH DARKNESS — Clare Mackintosh The Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid's Tale — Hannah Deitch My name was Natalie Heller...
    By Caro Claire Burke
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Dylan's Pick Dylan's Pick
    Theo of Golden
    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...
    By Allen Levi
    Paperback
    $2899
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Wedding People
    'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people — but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...
    By Alison Espach
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses Paperback Box Set (5 books)
    All five of the Court of Thorns and Roses paperbacks packaged together in a gorgeous box set. "Passionate, violent, sexy and daring." —USA TODAY on A Court of Thorns and Roses Feyre is a huntress. The skin of a wolf would bring enough gold to feed her sisters for a month. But the life of a magical creature comes at...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Set
    $9999
    Elsewhere:
    $12495
    (4)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Wings and Ruin
    The third instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. In A Court of Wings and Ruin, the gripping third book of the ACOTAR series, Feyre Archeron faces the ultimate battle for her world. Having returned to the Spring Court, she is determined to gather...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses
    The first instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON and TikTok sensation, from multi-million selling and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. Maas has established herself as a fantasy fiction titan – Time Harry Potter magic, Taylor Swift sass, Fifty Shades-level athleticism – The Sunday Times With bits of Buffy, Game of Thrones and Outlander, this is a glorious series...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Mist and Fury
    A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas continues Feyre Archeron's epic journey in the world of the High Fae. Having survived the brutal trials under the Mountain, Feyre returns to the Spring Court. Though she now possesses the immortal powers of the High Fae, the traumatic experiences have left scars on her human heart. Haunted by the...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Frost and Starlight
    In A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas, readers are invited to revisit the enchanting world of Prythian in a heartwarming and introspective narrative. Set against the backdrop of the Winter Solstice, Feyre Archeron and her mate Rhysand return to centre stage as they strive to restore the Night Court after the devastating conflicts of A Court...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Frost and Starlight - Night Court Edition
    Limited Edition
    A Court of Frost and Starlight - Night Court Edition
    The magic and beauty of the Night Court is captured in these LIMITED EDITIONS of the Court of Thorns and Roses series! This Night Court Edition features the Night Court symbol on a striking black and silver foiled cover and includes black sprayed edges. An unmissable companion tale to the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Silver Flames - Night Court Edition
    Limited Edition
    A Court of Silver Flames - Night Court Edition
    The magic and beauty of the Night Court is captured in these LIMITED EDITIONS of the Court of Thorns and Roses series! This Night Court Edition features the Night Court symbol on a striking black and silver foiled cover and includes black sprayed edges. The latest instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Silver Flames
    The latest instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. Maas has established herself as a fantasy fiction titan - Time Think Game of Thrones meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a drizzle of E.L. James – Telegraph Spiced with slick plotting and atmospheric world-building...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Wings and Ruin - Night Court Edition
    Limited Edition
    A Court of Wings and Ruin - Night Court Edition
    The magic and beauty of the Night Court is captured in these LIMITED EDITIONS of the Court of Thorns and Roses series! This Night Court Edition features the Night Court symbol on a striking black and silver foiled cover and includes black sprayed edges. The third installment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

General Fiction lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all