In part one, I explained that in Austria we practically have no professional literary criticism be it good or bad. There are a handful of managers of literary journals or literary shows. Plus, we have a larger number of part-time critics working as a sideline in many fields, including literature. The same also applies…
2015
2015, Literary trends across Europe
Understanding Austria: on literary criticism, Part 1/ Österreich verstehen: über die Literaturkritik, Teil 1
by Peter Zimmermann •
The Feuilleton debates largely initiated by writers diagnose the condition of German-language literary criticism as feeble, if not degenerate. The tirades against the critics are a tradition that pervades the German literary scene since its inception, that is, since the late 18th century. I should be more precise: since the origins of the interplay of…
2015, Comic and Graphic Novel, Innovations in the digital field
Who’s afraid of the e-Comic?/ Wer hat Angst vor dem E-Comic?
by Christian Gasser •
The “ebook” has been the slow-burner for years at book fairs. At Comic Festivals, of course, events are organized about the e-Comic, although the approach is comparatively reserved and tentative. Facing up to the digital revolution – sooner or later this will also impact on the comic – is not happening as consistently as it…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
The future of our living literature: Europe as a continent of collaboration
by Steven J. Fowler •
I’ve said this often, and often to consternation, but I believe poetry, & literature in general, lends itself to collaboration as language does conversation, for it is in poetry we are renovating the living space of communication, and this in itself is a collaborative act. I believe the poet comes up against something other than…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
BETON INTERNATIONAL NO. 2: A GAZE INTO THE FUTURE OF EUROPE/ POGLED U BUDUĆNOST EVROPE
by Sasa Ilic •
The subscribers of Tageszeitung newspaper received on 10th March this year the second issue of Beton International, a 32-page annual supplement dealing with cultural and broader social issues, illustrated with comic-frames by Belgrade alternative comics authors. TAZ devoted readers are well aware of it, as they received the Beton supplement last year, which covered different…
Comic and Graphic Novel
The angst of growth/ Die Angst vor dem Wachstum
by Christian Gasser •
Picture the scene: your job is in an area that will have experienced growth – and more, and more growth – for almost twenty years. Yet, by now your biggest worry is nothing more than this boom. This superficially paradoxical case describes the current state of the French comics market that is still Europe’s largest…
2015, The Migrants
Murderous Identities/ الهويات القاتلة
by Iman Humaydan •
In 2008, I came to Paris from Lebanon to attend the annual Salon du livre, for a book launch and signing of my second novel, Wild Mulberries, which had at that time just been translated into French (published by Verticales). The day of my book signing, I read in the media about Arab calls to…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
The Epic Theater of Thomas Piketty/ Epski teater Thomasa Pikettyja
by Manca G. Renko •
Not long ago, it would have been unimaginable that one of the fastest selling out “performances” in a national theatre would be a lecture by an economist; that around a thousand people would buy tickets in a single day and then eagerly await a man who, in an English softened by a French accent, was…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
Why does it feel so difficult to throw books away?
by Sam Sedgman •
After recently moving house, and being confronted box by box with just how much stuff I seem to own, I found no trouble in joyfully throwing plenty of it away. But not my books. Though I threw out clothes, rugs, games, crockery, pictures, I couldn’t bring myself to throw away a single book. I hold…
2015, The Migrants
The Stuffed Barbarian/ Kitömött barbár
by Agnes Orzoy •
In Claude Berri’s film Jean de Florette, based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol, a city-dweller inherits a plot of land in fabulous Provence. Jean, played by Gérard Dépardieu, moves there with his wife and daughter, and makes enthusiastic plans to grow vegetables and breed rabbits. However, as his neighbours secretly block the freshwater spring,…