Surfaces and the Past

This year’s Buch Wien was a resounding success and the TRADUKI programme attracted a fair deal of interest. Albanian author and journalist Lindita Arapi presented her novel Albanische Schwestern (tr: Florian Kienzle, Weidle Verlag) and spoke with Robert Pichler and Günter Kaindlstorfer about the future of Albania. The Slovenian authors Mojca Kumerdej and Vinko Möderndorfer presented their books – Unter die Oberfläche (tr: E. Köstler, L. Linde, F. Hafner, K. Almasy, Wallstein Verlag) and Die andere Vergangenheit (tr: Erwin Köstler, Andrej Leben, Residenz Verlag) – both at the fair and in Vienna’s old town. The evening event took place at the Austrian Society for Literature and was moderated by Katja Gasser. Also in the Austrian capital: The Croatian author Tatjana Gromača presented her novel Die göttlichen Kindchen (tr: Will Firth, edition Stroux) and Serbian author Bojan Savić Ostojić talked about his latest book Nichts gehört niemandem (tr: Mascha Dabić, eta Verlag) to the Austrian public.

Once more, we were shown how deeply the future is anchored in the past and how much the past shapes the present. It is a pile of forgotten history (or stories) at the Belgrade flea market that can be snapped up for a handful of dinars. It is not one past – but many, and always a different one.

We would like to thank Annemarie Türk for the fabulous programme and all the moderators and interpreters for their fabulous work. See you at the next Buch Wien!

Copyright: Österreichische Gesellschaft für Literatur