Incentives - New Literature from Austria

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Literary journalists and researchers introduce current new publications; reading samples allow for a closer look at the texts; short portraits of the authors complement the picture.

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The Project "Incentives" targets at the internationalization of Austrian literature, respectively the translation of current texts.

Project realization: the Office of Documentation of Contemporary Austrian Literature (reviews, author’s portraits) – The Association of Translators (translations) – readme.cc (infrastructure).

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[ كتاب مقترح من Incentives ] To Illuminate the World with a Laugh
A lemon tree would bring new life into the house, says Mr Faustini and promises: as soon as it gets warmer you can go out on the terrace. After all, Hörbranz is not situated in the south, and Lake Constance is not the sea. Yet there is room enough for the improbable and the impossible to happen along the narrow lakeside of Bregenz.
Everything began with Faustini’s deceased great aunt Fini. His neighbour passed on her greetings to him from the Beyond. That was how a door opened onto the supernatural. In Susi Kroth’s shop, Faustini recognises an old man called Gundolf in the dog Tobi. Gundolf has been hidden in the dog ever since a fight with his friend Mario in his youth. Faustini sets out to look for Mario. After all, according to Faustini: 'Sometimes one cannot do anything else than what one does. And trust that one thing will lead to another.'
Eventually, all the threads come together in Toni’s kiosk and everything ends well. The friends meet up again and the man in the dog stays where he is. After all, according to Gundolf: 'As a dog you have got it all behind you, as a dog you can be completely here, now is now and things are good the way they are.'
People like Faustini have become rare in the modern world. In his old-fashioned politeness, awkwardness and gaucheness, he resembles his French brother Monsieur Hulot, Jacques Tati’s endearing film character.
'The whole: what interested me was to illuminate the world, but with a laugh,' says the author, Wolfgang Hermann. With Faustini he has achieved that. Hopefully we will not have to wait too long for his next adventure.
(Translated by Peter Waugh)
Michaela Schmitz, October 2008
Original version

[ معلومات ] Hermann, Wolfgang: Herr Faustini und der Mann im Hund. (Mr Faustini and the Man in the Dog). (original language: Deutsch) Deuticke Verlag, Wien 2006 . ISBN: 3-552-06025-1.