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).

http://www.literaturhaus.at

[ book tip by Literatur Schweiz ] What exactly is going on around him, Paul can’t say, he doesn’t know. He has, though, an undeniable suspicion that something isn’t right: «He was ill, so it was said, or, had been. But it wasn’t like that for him at all. He didn’t have the precise word for this process the troubled people around him called ‹convalescence›. He added the word ‹contemplative› or ‹revitalizing› or ‹re-emerging›.»
It is gradually revealed that Paul von Matt has dropped out of his previous life. He’s not going to work any more, he’s unable to do anything; something has happened. He stumbles through his daily routine, which he could hardly cope with if he hadn’t the help of his wife Marion, and he has to live with the fact that his memory is failing. But then, he suddenly and surprisingly remembers something, which is impossible for him to know in such detail, though it’s now right before his eyes.
Something has shifted in his mind – we aren’t told «what». Paul himself knows even less, and sometimes doesn’t even know at all, even how to behave. Nonetheless, he who forgets so many things, is not himself forgotten. His brother Theo drops by from time to time, likewise his work colleague Steff – and little by little, from these various elements, there crystallises an idea of the life Paul must once have led.
Jürg Schubiger’s novel «No Head for Heights» tells of this other life. Schubiger is a virtuoso of the subtle shift, the almost un-noticed transition and he sends his protagonist on a precarious journey into the unknown. Even Paul has no idea what awaits him there, because he has lost his memory, he’s forgotten everything. He’s now open to everything and everything is possible. These events are told in a supple yet tense prose, in which all hangs in the balance until the very end.  

(Martin Zingg)

Recommended for translation by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia:
www.12swissbooks.ch

[ Favourite quote ] «You’re making progress, Marion said shortly before Paul held the spoon so awkwardly that the soup dribbled down his little finger and into his sleeve. Blunders such as these no longer belonged to their everyday. One didn’t expect these anymore.»

[ book info ] Schubiger, Jürg: Nicht schwindelfrei. (original language: German) No Head for Heights. Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck / Wien, 2013 . ISBN: 978-3-7099-7139-0.