Sarah Wipauer

Born in Vienna in 1986, Sarah Wipauer studied Sinology and Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna. From 2009 to 2010, she spent a period of study at Wuhan University. Since 2010, she has worked at the Study Services Office of the Institute of Prehistory and Historical Archaeology. Her writing has appeared in literary journals and anthologies. Wipauer has received numerous scholarships and awards. She was a participant in the Klagenfurt Literature Course in 2011, a finalist in the 25th Open Mike competition in 2017 and a finalist in FM4’s Wortlaut competition in 2025. In 2019, she gave a reading as part of the Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt. “Fehlende Gespenster” is her first novel.

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Books

Sarah Wipauer - Missing Ghosts

What lies beneath a city? In Missing Ghosts, we follow a cunning narrator into Vienna’s legendary network of tunnels. After the Central Cemetery opened in 1874, the system was developed to transport bodies using a pneumatic tube system, and its last ‘passenger’ was allegedly Niki Lauda. And that is only one of the bizarre stories told by Merian, an enigmatic young woman who leads tours through the disused tunnels. But whom should we trust on a journey through the underworld? With a suspicious delight in storytelling and sinister intentions, Merian leads her adventurous—and perhaps slightly too outspoken—visitors into a labyrinth from which not all of them will emerge unscathed …

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