Peter Henisch

Born in Vienna in 1943. A post-war childhood and an adolescence shaped by reconstruction. Studied philosophy and psychology. In 1969, he co-founded the literary magazine “Wespennest” with Helmut Zenker. He has worked as an independent writer since the 1970s. Henisch’s first novel, “Die kleine Figur meines Vaters”, was published in 1975, followed by numerous other novels, including “Die schwangere Madonna” (2005), “Eine sehr kleine Frau” (2007), “Mortimer und Miss Molly” (2013) and “Suchbild mit Katze” (2016). He has received numerous honours, including the Austrian Art Prize. His most recent books published by Residenz Verlag are “Der Jahrhundertroman” (2021), “Nichts als Himmel” (2023) and “Muttersuchen” (2026).

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Books

Peter Henisch - In Search of My Mother

In this tender yet realistic book, Peter Henisch sets out in search of his mother, Rosa. Beginning with memories of the turmoil at the end of the war and his childhood in the post-war years, he traces the course of her life. In Search of My Mother interweaves contemporary history with family history, taking the story into the 1980s. Peter Henisch recounts the extraordinary fate of a woman who gradually sought to free herself from her ambivalent relationship with—and dependence on—her husband, a renowned war and press photographer. Written without shying away from taboos, the book is nevertheless a homage.

Peter Henisch - Nothing but sky

In ‘Nothing But Sky’, Peter Henisch returns to his beloved San Vito, to a hidden apartment under the eaves in this small Italian town. For musician Paul Spielmann, who has just fled the pandemic and a midlife crisis in Vienna, it becomes a refuge. Paul finds peace during evenings on his terrace, taking photographs of metamorphosing clouds and flocks of birds, until suddenly a man appears across the roofs, one of the clandestini, refugees from Africa who are increasingly becoming a focus of protest and agitation among the Italian right wing. ‘Give me shelter’ the man begs, and Paul takes him in and helps him. Soon, he is drawn into a maelstrom of ambivalent emotions and political propaganda – and a growing friendship with Abdallah …

Peter Henisch - THE NOVEL OF THE CENTURY

As a bookseller, elderly Mr Roch has always been surrounded by books. Now he's written his own "novel of the century". It's all about literature, from Musil and Roth through to Bachmann and Handke – stories in which the notion of possibility often overrides reality. Mr Roch asks Lisa, a student and waitress in his favourite café, to type up the manuscript for him. As she can't read his writing, he decides to read it out to her, but his papers are in a dreadful mess. An ambivalent relationship develops between the old man who's brimming with stories and the young woman who doesn't believe everything he says. But Lisa has other worries too – her friend Semira is due to be deported. Can Roch's storehouse provide a refuge for her?

Peter Henisch - A grand finale for Novak

Novel

Novak is a late bloomer when it comes to the wide world of emotions, which he discovers in a hospital, of all places. Because his hospital roommate keeps him from sleeping, the Indonesian nurse Manuela lends him her walkman and tapes, thus infecting him with her love of opera. After being discharged Novak somehow can’t get back into the routine of his regular, ordinary life. Manuela has opened his ears – not only to opera, but also to the annoying racket of everyday life: noise from lawn mowers, jackhammers and his wife Herta. While he continues his new of listening to opera, Herta suspects another woman behind his new passion. She’s not that far off the mark. But Manuela suddenly disappears. Was she merely an illusion on the stage of Novak’s middle-aged dreams? Or could his wife somehow be involved in her quiet disappearance? Even without her, the grand finale is a striking as an opera: cruelly dramatic.

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