New Literature from Austria
Incentives - New Literature from Austria
readme.cc provides multilingual access to the latest Austrian literature. In collaboration with the Literaturhaus in Vienna the reading forum offers the latest insights about literature published in Austria.
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.
The range of information is currently available in five languages: German, English, French, Czech and Hungarian.
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).
All book tips
Wie im Wald Klar, Elisabeth
When Karin invites her foster sister Lisa to move back with her and her boyfriend Alexander to their childhood home, Lisa agrees right away. Their parents have died and their siblings have all ...
Steiners Geschichte Göttfert, Constantin
The Long Shadows of the Past Constantin Göttfert is a sensitive storyteller who gives his characters the room they need to unload their weighty stories. The subject of “Steiners ...
zwischen Pfeifer, Judith Nika
Tales from an indecisive life The title of poet Judith Nika Pfeifer’s first prose collection – zwischen (between) – is unpretentious, even restrained. It calls to mind an intermediate ...
Wandlungen des Prinzen Genji Federmair, Leopold
“Took the train to Miyajimaguchi, about an hour on the Sanyo line, in one of the carriages that have been in use for five or six decades.” We are in Japan, along with a protagonist who ...
Kindheitswald Laznia, Elke
“Writing holds my hand” How does the past smell? Like the green moss of the titular “childhood forest”? Or the gray dust of the childhood home, casting inward shadows? The important ...
Das Fell der Tante Meri Bauer, Theodora
At the beginning, everything is up in the air. Theodora Bauer’s cryptically titled novel, “Das Fell der Tante Meri” (“Aunt Meri’s Fur”), narrates the story of three characters - ...
Vom Gebrauch der Wünsche Mischkulnig, Lydia
This book starts off explosively. The setting is an estate in Sievering, an outer district of Vienna. This is “the erstwhile property of a displaced family,” where young Leon and his mother go ...
Der Allesforscher Steinfest, Heinrich
The title of Heinrich Steinfest’s new novel could be translated as ‘The Everything Researcher.’ But what does that mean exactly - someone who researches everything that has ever existed, or ...
Geister und Tattoos Prosser, Robert
Robert Prosser’s newest novel, “Geister und Tattoos” (“Spirits and Tattoos”), is about the residents of a small village on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. After the Nagorno-Karabakh ...
Regeln des Tanzes Stangl, Thomas
A fragile condition A lonely old man (Dr. Walter Steiner) walks aimlessly through the streets of Vienna. He’s retired, his wife has left him and he senses “a wonderful ...
Mittelstadtrauschen Kinstner, Margarita
"Mittelstadtrauschen" begins like any romance. Marie and Jakob meet in a coffee house, check each other out and start a relationship. Like most people around the age of thirty, ...
Ballastexistenz Dolgan, Christoph
How deep is rock bottom? When did the plunge begin? How far down is the bottom? These are questions asked only by ...
Mutter und der Bleistift Winkler, Josef
Two stories can be found in Josef Winkler’s new book, “Da flog das Wort auf” (Then the Word Exploded) and the story from which the title of the book is taken “Mutter und der ...
Südbalkon Straub, Isabella
Isabella Straub knows not only how to write but also how to present her work. However, the media attention garnered by her debut is the result of the precision of her craft and the complex ...
Quasikristalle Menasse, Eva
It’s difficult to categorize Eva Menasse’s novel Quasikristalle (Quasi-crystals). At first, the reader might ...
Grundlsee Ernst, Gustav
The novel begins when its narrator wakes up. The first very dense section reveals the situation of a family with three small children in a house on a lake in the Austrian Salzkammergut, where the ...
Woher wir kommen Frischmuth, Barbara
Woher wir kommen (Where We Come From), the title of Barbara Frischmuth’s new novel, is the leitmotiv and question with which the novel’s central female characters are preoccupied. Three ...
Reise nach Kalino Knapp, Radek
Radek Knapp can. Whatever he undertakes in the way of writing succeeds, and so does the pseudo-detective novel Reise nach ...
Ich bin das Festland Çakır, Seher
Migration is the recurring theme in the collection of stories ich bin das festland (i am the mainland) by Seher Çakır, ...
Indigo Setz, Clemens
‘Indigo children’ were once regarded as an esoteric promise of salvation: children with special spiritual qualities who ...
Die Unzertrennlichen Faschinger, Lilian
A death takes Sissi Fux back to the Sausal region in the south of Styria. Back to her unloved relatives and the evil grandmother. Back to the father, who fell down a staircase and broke his ...
Ich nannte ihn Krawatte Flašar, Milena Michiko
The stranger’s real name is Ōhara Tetsu, but the young man on the park bench calls the elegant gentleman simply ‘The Tie’. Milena Michiko Flašar’s novel tells the story of an ...
Reisen und Gespenster Stangl, Thomas
Thomas Stangl’s volume of essays Reisen und Gespenster (Journeys and Ghosts), which follows three novels – most recently Was Kommt (What Is Coming) – documents the attempt to examine the ...
Hanno brennt Köhle, Markus
When a person burns, then it is with love, passion or rage – all these blazing feelings are to be found in the new novel Hanno brennt (Hanno Is Burning) by Markus Köhle, published by Milena. ...
Ruhm am Nachmittag Gauß, Karl-Markus
When eminent names are being named, mention will be made of the journals of Karl-Markus Gauss from Salzburg, who has now published his fourth such book, entitled Ruhm am Nachmittag (Fame in the ...
Die Tiere von Paris Schreiner, Margit
"You write on a board that you have taken from a building site, sitting up in bed, while your husband works at his desk." (p. 8) That is how Die Tiere von Paris (The Animals of ...
Geld! Rosei, Peter
Peter Rosei has written – in a highly condensed form – a Viennese social novel which has only marginally to do with the finance industry, but which nevertheless focuses on money. This is ...
Die Voest-Kinder Reichart, Elisabeth
Voest, Austria’s most important industrial company, developed from the Hermann Göring Steelworks. The history of this plant has long since been researched by historians, and there have also ...
Jáchymov Haslinger, Josef
"Jáchymov" is a triangular story. The angles – in a well constructed network of tensions kept up to the very last page of the book – are formed by Bohumil Modrý, Blanka Modra and ...
Engel des Vergessens Haderlap, Maja
Maja Haderlap, who won the Bachmann Prize in 2011, has returned to her Carinthian home – to be precise to her Slovene village of Lepena, with her first novel, Engel des Vergessens (Angel of ...
