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).
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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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Lucia Binar und die russische Seele Vertlib, Vladimir
Kurt Tucholsky defines humour as the feeling “that what we do here looks abundantly nonsensical when seen from above”. According to this view of humour, one of its preconditions is an ...
Tote im Text. Thriller – eine Irritation Wimmer, Herbert J.
(Not) A Thriller as a Language Game “Corpses in the Text. Thriller – A Vexation”. Anyone who does not already know the author will be able to guess from the title that Herbert Wimmerʾs ...
Ein dünner Faden Strobel, Bernhard
With the aid of a magnifying glass and his own linguistic precision, Bernhard Strobel dissects human relationships. “My mind forced me to see all things (…) at a sinister proximity: just ...
Die Verschwundenen Popp, Wolfgang
Whatever happened to …? The question regarding the well-being of former classmates, fellow students and teachers pops up all the more frequently the older one becomes, and the more acquaintances ...
Territorien Gregor, Susanne
One night, a telephone call from Nicaragua tears apart the happy life of Emma and Samuel. The sudden death of his father leads the couple to Managua – for the young woman a completely foreign ...
Winters Garten Fritsch, Valerie
Nothing less than love in the face of the apocalypse is the subject of this first novel by the young author Valerie Fritsch, which she has chosen to open with images from an ideal childhood. Anton ...
Astronauten Gugić, Sandra
This is an extraordinary book. Nevertheless, there is little about the initial configuration of 'Astronauts', the first novel to be published by Viennese author Sandra Gugić (born in 1976), to ...
Ameisendelirium Lisa, Spalt
‘Syntax versus semantics – a competition’ would be an appropriate description of the style adopted in Lisa Spalt‘s Ameisendelirium (‘Delirium of the Ants’). After all, the actual ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 - ...
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 ...
