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

[ המלצה מאת Literatur Schweiz ] It’s Summer, 1938: Lissy Harb and Ron Berend are spending some time in Brandenburg, working on a Jewish agricultural training project in Ahrensdorf, near Trebbin. Ron is from Hamburg, Lissy from Vienna. Along with other young people, they’re getting ready to emigrate to Palestine. Once they arrive, they’ll be living on a kibbutz, so they have to learn the skills they’ll need to survive out there. They’re taking courses in agriculture, vegetable farming and joinery; they’re learning new languages and are being instructed in Jewish culture and religion.
Urs Faes‘ carefully researched novel reveals to us a little known aspect of Jewish history. It takes as its starting point a photograph of the lovers, and – underpinned by proven facts – imagines how in those uncertain times, young people might have come together and lived in what were called «Hachschara», or Jewish training camps in Nazi Germany, at a time of great unrest, fear and also great hope. The Jewish would-be emigrants have lived for a long time in ‘enemy territory‘: the Hitler Youth has a camp in the neighbourhood, there’s also an aerodrome nearby. Everyone is fearful, as to whether they’ll be able to get out of Germany in good time, and get permission from the British authorities, to travel to the British Mandate in Palestine.
Interwoven into this picture of a German Summer, is the love story of Lissy and Ron, who meet in Ahrensdorf, fall in love – and then lose each other again. They wanted to build a life together in Palestine; this novel becomes their touching memorial.

(Martin Zingg)

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

[ ציטוט אהוב ] «What kind of voice was this – a laugh, not loud but penetrating, boisterous and playful, a stranger’s, most importantly a girl’s laugh he had never heard before, with a sound that was new to him, throaty, raw.»

[ מידע על ספרים ] Faes, Urs: Sommer in Brandenburg. (original language: German) Summer in Brandenburg. Suhrkamp, Berlin, 2013 . ISBN: 978-3-518-42419-3.