Austrian Literature Feature in Words Without Borders

Reverberations of History

In this month’s special feature, 2015 Guggenheim Fellow Tess Lewis translates and introduces a selection of contemporary fiction, poetry, and drama from Austria. Lewis writes: “Often lumped into the unwieldy category of German-language literature or overshadowed by Austria’s literary giants, many of its most interesting writers have yet to be translated into English. A country of eight million people, Austria has six official languages. A century ago, under the Hapsburg Empire, more than twice that many ethnic and linguistic groups were bound in a fruitful if sharp-elbowed co-existence and those creative tensions invigorate Austrian writing to this day.” In their distinct ways, these pieces are animated by the frictions that have energized Austrian literature for generations, from Joseph Roth and Robert Musil to the four writers featured here.
Maja Haderlap 2 poems
Karl-Markus Gauss
Alois Hotschnig
Antonio Fian

Interview with Trafika Europe

 

INTERVIEW

“The war is a devious fisher of men.” Check out this terrific audio interview with translator Tess Lewis. She shares insights from her work translating Swiss novelist Jean-Luc Benoziglio’s Privy Portrait from French (published by Seagull Books) and Slovenian Maja Haderlap’s novel Angel of Oblivion from German (due out from Archipelago Books). We discuss the role of humor in French culture, differences among the main varieties of German language, and the condition of the Slovenian minority (as well as migrants generally) in Austria through the present day. Includes Tess reading an excerpt from Angel of Oblivion, for which she has won the Austrian Cultural Forum’s 2015 Translation Prize.