FRANKFURT, Oct 17: Whether it is simply a fashion cycle or a sign of the times, books by communist icon Karl Marx are selling well, German publisher Joern Schuetrumpf said on Friday.

“My sales have been increasing since 2005,” said Schuetrumpf on his stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair that was decorated with posters of Marx and Rosa Luxemburg, a German socialist figure.

Schuetrumpf is head of Karl Dietz Verlag, which specialises in communist literature, and spoke in front of his bestseller, a sober edition of “Capital,” the “bible” written by Marx and Friedrich Engels and first published in 1867.

“In 2005 I sold 500 copies, then 800 in 2006 and 1,300 in 2007. In the first nine months of 2008 I am already at 1,500. The absolute numbers are not impressive but the progression is,” noted the militant editor who offers small Russian cakes to visitors.

“Of course fashion has an effect, since there are many young readers who buy it but who will never finish it because it is extremely tough and demanding reading,” Schuetrumpf said. “But I also sense a real trend back towards reading Marx.”

With many of the world’s largest economies on the brink of recession, “a society that feels again a need to read Karl Marx is a society that does not feel good,” he concluded.—AFP