Like Chewing Gum on the Sole of a Shoe There is a slight irony that Friederike Mayröcker, of all people, gave the Laudatio speech in 2003 to mark the Promotional Award for Literat
Idiocy and the Audience First, somebody has to match his record: Peter Handke has been in the spotlight of German-speaking literary criticism for fifty years. For every book, every
The world must be romanticized. Only in this way will one rediscover its original senses. I return at this point to this famous maxim of Novalis, written in the early 19th century,
No, I won’t make any more remarks about the weather. But if I were to put on a film critic’s mask, I could say a positive word about the perfectly illuminated setting and caref
All over the world (at least I think so) people enjoy talking about the weather. They mainly do so because grumbling about the weather is a constant, and there is no fear of any co
An October morning in Melk is a good time for reflection. Under overcast skies the ‘executive suite’ of the Benedictine Abbey rising in its pastel yellow above the town gives a
Awake. Get up. Snow outside. The diary or journal as a literary genre enjoys huge popularity in the publishing world. So why is this? Because it satisfies the need for authenticity
In Austria, an audience attuned to culture gets indignant if Austrian writers are treated as German writers. This happens now and again – I last noticed it in Eva Menasse’s cas
