BERLIN - Books by and about German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the new Pope Benedict XVI, sold out in his home country within hours of his election, publishers said on Wednesday.
Ratzinger's own latest volume, whose title translates from the German as "Values at a Time of Upheaval", was only published this month but the initial German print run of 3,000 copies has already sold out, a spokeswoman for the Herder publishing house said.
The company is now having 20,000 copies printed to meet the surge in demand.
The entire remaining stocks of the biography of Ratzinger written by veteran Vatican journalist John L. Allen, were sold out overnight Tuesday, its German publisher Patmos said.
Patmos spokeswoman Ute Mueller said around 5,000 advance orders had been received from Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
The book, entitled simply "Cardinal Ratzinger", will be available again from April 29.
In Budapest the director of the Vatican's official book publisher said books available in Hungarian by the new pope had also sold out.
"As of yesterday we still had 400 copies of 'God and the World' but we are all out today," Oliver Farkas, director of the St. Stephen's Society, told MTI national news agency.
Farkas said the other book from the new pope that was available in Hungarian was "Salt of the Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at the End of the Millennium," but that too has sold out.
He said the publisher hopes to receive new copies of the works by next week.
04/20/2005 16:08 GMT