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Dear Maria, Die Vergiftung (“The Poisoning”, 1920) reads like a box full of family pictures. We are taking them out randomly, one by one, and some disembodied…… Read more “And the money ate the blood”
Tag: Austria
Maria Lazar
Maria Lazar (née Maria Franziska Lazar. After marriage, Maria Franziska Strindberg. Pseudonym: Esther Grenen. November 22, 1895 – March 30, 1948) was an Austrian-Jewish writer. Born in…… Read more “Maria Lazar”
Notes heard by no one reverberating against nothing
Dear Robert, Intimate Ties, tr. Peter Wortsman (2019. Original: Vereinigungen, 1911) comprises two novellas centred on repressed sexuality, taboo, and female desire. Both content and narrative style…… Read more “Notes heard by no one reverberating against nothing”
Robert Musil
Robert Musil (Robert Mathias Musil, 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian writer. From 1892 to 1894, he attended a military boarding school in Eisenstadt. From…… Read more “Robert Musil”
Trust is fine, but control is better
Dear Elfriede, Your novel The Piano Teacher, tr. Joachim Neugroschel (1988. Die Klavierspielerin, 1983) is vile and uncompromising: it dwells on the grotesque, crossed by an undercurrent…… Read more “Trust is fine, but control is better”
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek (1946) is an Austrian writer of Jewish, Romanian and Czech descent. She graduated from the Vienna Conservatory with an organist diploma, and later studied art history and theater at…… Read more “Elfriede Jelinek”
Hope is a wound
Dear Marianne, The Weight of Things (2015), translated by Adrian Nathan West (Die Schwerkraft der Verhältnisse, 1978) is this odd thing: something in-between a horror story, a…… Read more “Hope is a wound”
Marianne Fritz
Marianne Fritz (14 December 1948 – 1 October 2007) was an Austrian writer. She completed her high school studies and received training as an office worker. Fritz worked as…… Read more “Marianne Fritz”
They didn’t dare before; now they do, that’s all
Dear Anna, I was halfway through Manja (tr. Kate Phillips, 2003. Manja: Ein Roman um 5 Kinder, 1938) this past week, when your book acquired a new…… Read more “They didn’t dare before; now they do, that’s all”
Anna Gmeyner
Anna Wilhelmine Gmeyner (16 March 1902 – 3 January 1991) was an exiled Austrian writer. She was born to liberal Jewish parents in Vienna, where her father…… Read more “Anna Gmeyner”
Farewell to Berlin
Dear Joseph, I’ve just finished two of your nonfiction books, What I Saw: Reports from Berlin, 1920–1933, and The Wandering Jews: The Classic Portrait of a Vanished People, both translated…… Read more “Farewell to Berlin”
Joseph Roth
Joseph Roth (1894 – 1939), was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and novelist. He was born and grew up in Brody, a small town near Lemberg (now Lviv) in East Galicia, in what…… Read more “Joseph Roth”
Alone among human beings
Dear Stefan, I just finished reading three books of yours. I’ll give a brief account of each book, and then write about my general view of them.…… Read more “Alone among human beings”
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig (November 28, 1881 in Vienna – February 22, 1942 in Petrópolis) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer. Zweig was born in Vienna, which… Read more "Stefan Zweig"
