Diogenes Verlag

Daniel Keel, who founded the publishing house in 1952, chose the name of the philosopher Diogenes, arguing "I found Diogenes especially appealing because he battled against every sort of convention not just theoretically but also in his lifestyle. And what really pleases me: he left no written record whatsoever, and yet his spirit lives on." The first book published by Diogenes was Ronald Searle's Hurrah for St. Trinian's!. In 1960 Keel moved the business to an office. Two years later, he had 12 employees. The first English author was Muriel Spark, and the first Americans were Carson McCullers, Harold Brodkey and Patricia Highsmith, all virtually unknown in German-speaking countries.

Rudolf Bettschart, Keel's childhood friend, became a business partner responsible for finances and marketing in 1966. In 2002, after 50 years, the company had 60 employees and was Europe's largest publisher of fiction, having published more than 3,400 books by 700 authors in more than 150 million copies. 1,744 titles were in print then, by 350 authors, including "bestselling" Paulo Coelho, John Irving, Ian McEwan and Barbara Vine. Bernhard Schlink's The Reader was the first German novel to reach the top of the New York Times bestseller list. The founder, asked for his secret of success, said: "Every kind of writing is permitted – except for the boring kind", and "I divide all works into two categories: those that I like and those that I don't like. I have no other criterion", continuing: "And since I'm a poor slob of a publisher who – as the critics rightly suspect – is himself unable to read or write a decent sentence, I borrowed these two phrases from two of our authors, namely Voltaire and Anton Chekhov." In 2003, Coelho's bestseller The Alchemist appeared on the book fair translated to 52 languages, setting a world record.

Daniel Keel died on 13 September 2011. His son Philippe succeeded him in April 2012.