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.

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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).

http://www.literaturhaus.at

[ book tip by Incentives ] This is a novel about the tranquility and expanse of northern Norway. A novel of two independent women who make their own decisions about their lives and are willing to accept deprivation in turn. It is also the story of two women searching for their roots. In the course of this search, they are confronted with the horrors of WWII, with the psychiatric practice during this period, with humiliation and trauma. Topics that have long fascinated the author, who works as a psychiatrist in Graubünden, Austria.

"Nordlicht" centers around Anna Berghofer, a psychiatrist who, at the start of the novel, lives in Zürich. She is afraid of becoming schizophrenic like her grandmother; she hears voices and can no longer stand daily life with her taciturn husband. Not until much later does she realize that her hallucinations were triggered by the years of fatigue brought on by her exhausting work. There are no exceptions. No one is immune.
After a few months, she decides to travel to Norway and spend the winter there alone to find herself again in silence and solitude. At the same time, she also undertakes a journey to find traces of her father who was stationed in Norway during World War II. She uses his notebooks to track down places, sites and houses he once saw or lived in.

A great friendship is at the center of part two of the novel. Giske Norman invites Anna to live with her in her large, old house. Slowly we learn that this is also a rapprochement between two fronts: the child of perpetrators and the child of victims.

Melitta Breznik’s ability to make us view her commanding descriptions of the landscape of northern Norway as a decelerating, recurring, calming pleasure rather than as a disruptive embellishment is breathtaking. The form transports the content to the reader without ever being intrusive. This sovereign use of language, her simple, restrained but consistent directness distinguish Melitta Breznik. Northern Light is a tranquil, thoughtful and masterful novel.

By Claudia Peer. English translation by Laura Radosh.
Complete version: http://www.literaturhaus.at/index.php?id=455

[ book info ] Breznik, Melitta: Nordlicht. (original language: Deutsch) Luchterhand Literaturverlag, München, 2009 . ISBN: 978-3-630-87287-2.