[ Bogtip efter Literatur Schweiz ] «Vertigo» is the title of one of the stories in Monique Schwitter's collection «Goldfischgedächtnis» (Goldfish Memory). And you might well become dizzy when you read these unusual short stories. Are they true or not? «Whether this story is true, I don't know, but I've heard it so often, I can't imagine it wouldn't be.» In the fifteen stories making up this collection, the characters often find themselves on shaky ground. Things are not easy for them: on the contrary. In the end all they want is a secure place in an insecure world.

These stories are above all about the struggle to survive. The characters take things to extremes, to where tragedy and comedy, hope and hopelessness, life and death, clash. A man sits in a hotel room and reads and reads, until reading takes over his life and becomes more real than reality. A small boy is shocked when his father grants his Halloween wishes. An actress complains that she remembers all the lines of all the parts she has ever had to learn in her life: «I've forgotten the technique of forgetting my lines!» She is forced to remember everything. Remembering and forgetting are recurring themes in these intricately crafted stories. 


(Martin Zingg, trans. by Marcy Goldberg)
 
Recommended for translation by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia:
www.12swissbooks.ch

[ Favoritcitat ] «He sits on the edge of the bed in his underpants, fanning himself. His dark brown hands dance in front of his fair chest, which he so despises, and which he hides away from the daylight and from strangers' eyes, under his shirt.»

[ Boginfo ] Schwitter, Monique: Goldfischgedächtnis. (original language: Deutsch) Goldfish Memory. Literaturverlag Droschl, Graz, 2011 . ISBN: 978-3-85420-789-4.