Hodder Press pre-empts The Buried City by Pompeii director Gabriel Zuchtriegel

Hodder Press has pre-empted The Buried City: What Pompeii Says About Us by archeologist and Pompeii director Gabriel Zuchtriegel, which was first published in the author’s native Germany. The English edition, translated by Jamie Bulloch, will also include a new afterword on the latest Pompeii discoveries.

Kirty Topiwala bought world English language rights from Annemarie Blumenhagen at Ullstein, to publish in May 2025. US rights were acquired at auction by Karen Levine of The University of Chicago Press, and translation rights have been sold in Italian, Dutch, Spanish, French and Hungarian.

"Zuchtriegel has been director of Pompeii since 2021 and is currently overseeing the biggest dig of the site in a generation," the synopsis says, adding that a third of Pompeii has yet to be excavated. "In The Buried City, Zuchtriegel takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of the city and reveals the new artefacts and remains that have been unearthed. He reconstructs the city as it would have been, revealing who lived here, what mattered to them and what happened in their final hours, while also reflecting on our role as keepers of this heritage."

Zuchtriegel said: "All of us who work in Pompeii have, in some way, been transformed by the site. Every day we come face-to-face with the terrible catastrophe of 79 AD when an entire city was buried alive, but we also find joy in the vivid colours of the frescoes that are still being excavated. The Buried City aims to make this profound experience accessible to the reader."

Topiwala added: "I’m delighted to be publishing this engaging exploration of Pompeii — which makes the distant past feel as though it were only yesterday. Gabriel’s take on archaeology is so fresh and inspiring, and makes me want to get straight on a plane to Naples."