Kaśka Bryla's manic realism draws the reader under its spell, in this highly topical and painfully intense novel.

Iga the skateboarder, the beautiful Jess and their chubby friend Ras are outsiders at their school, but the bond between them is strong. Secretive and inseparable, they call themselves the "Ice Divers". One night, the youngsters witness a brutal assault by the police. When the iniquity remains without repercussions, they decide to take the law into their own hands. Twenty years later, a mysterious stranger turns up who seems to know about the act of revenge that took place all that time ago. The precarious balance is under threat. Kaśka Bryla skilfully weaves a gripping story about the causes of radicalisation into a plea for solidarity and love. Not for the faint-hearted, this novel will be warmly embraced by passionate spirits!

Loving father and angry hate post writer – Paul Sarianidis is both. When he is exposed online, he finds himself fighting for his dignity, his family and even his life.

With 'Zebra at War', Vladimir Vertlib has produced a masterful work that casts a wry yet affectionate and empathetic look at the dark side of humanity and politics. Paul Sarianidis lives with his family in an Eastern European seaside town, in a region run down by years of civil war. When he is made redundant, he becomes increasingly embroiled in the vicious debates that rage on social media. One day, Paul is arrested by Boris Lupowitsch, a rebel leader whom he has threatened online. Lupowitsch holds him to account on camera. Paul is mocked and humiliated, and the resulting video is watched by millions. How can he carry on living with the shame?

As convincing as it is provocative, Simon's novel is a portrait of a not-so-distant future in which surveillance state and identity politics make for a perfect match.

Fast-paced and humorous, Cordula Simon's biting novel describes a future that is worryingly close to our present. Surveillance and self-regulation by means of an implanted log have become common place – those who don't participate attract suspicion. When Sandor, the weatherman on Honest Airwaves reveals the destructive intentions of the Tolerance Union while on air, the regime's response is merciless. He is persecuted relentlessly, just like the "Wolves of Pripyat", an alleged terrorist group that fights against the Consul who reigns over the Union with supposed benevolence. Simon's sweeping novel is a hallucinatory vision of a future in which even the longed-for freedom is no more than a digitally generated illusion, a particularly cunning trick of the system.

Ten years of writers in residence

This book brings together the writing of 46 authors from Eastern and Central Europe and the Black Sea region who took up writer's residencies in Vienna between 2010 and 2020. Born in the 60s, 70s and 80s, the authors were young when Russian was still an official language in Armenia, Georgia, Moldavia and the Ukraine, and there was a shared language in Yugoslavia. Now they have contributed new work to Declaration for Everything. The result is an exciting, varied collection that brings together the most notable voices of the past decade. Together they take us on a journey of discovery – from Skopje to Sarajevo, from Tirana to Perm, from Minsk to Tiflis and from Istanbul to Chisinau.

Balancing the need for closeness with the fear of surveillance, As Far As We Know is a multi-voiced exploration of life today.

"We watch the watchers!" Under cover of darkness, a self-styled group of activists tries to fight back against the omnipresence of surveillance. As yet, they're only armed with spray cans. But how far should civil disobedience go? Mirjam has her doubts, while Agnes attempts to expose her unfaithful boyfriend with an app. Then there's Illir Zerai, a refugee who suffers from a persecution complex following his work for the Albanian secret service, and the student Marek, who falls in love with a stranger at a party. They all live in the same block of flats – and like all neighbours, their relationship is a mixture of need and mistrust, of helping and spying on each other. But there comes a point when you have to let go of fear.

The third volume of Lukas Kummer's highly praised graphic novel series based on Thomas Bernhard's “Autobiographische Schriften”.

“The Breath” forms the core of Bernhard's autobiography. It is where deepest despair and creative force are blended into the potent mix that makes his writing so unique, fascinating and boundary-breaking to this day. Bernhard was in his late teens when severe pleurisy abruptly wrenched him from his apprenticeship. He was hospitalised and considered terminally ill. But the 'room for lost causes' into which he is shunted turns out to be a place of new beginnings. Thomas Bernhard decides to live – and following the death of his grandfather resolves to become a writer himself. Lukas Kummer has found a rich and powerful imagery for this journey from near death to redemptive self-creation.

A wonderfully wry story about a young woman, an old man and the power of literature.

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?

A unique pop-cultural game set in 1990s Belgrade – and a mad race against a time that truly screwed things up for the city's people.

Belgrade, 1995: Marko, his sister Vanja and Kasandra from the Roma settlement live in the "giant psycho-economical disaster" of 1990s Belgrade – a vicious circle of poverty, violence, inflation, drugs and new technologies. Yet in this inspired novel there aren't just gangs and dealers, there's also a crazy scientist and a time machine, there's a Balkan pop icon and kinky sex, there are bombardments and destruction, but also music and friendship. When the three young friends are catapulted into the war year of 1999, they realise that they have to rescue their city from the disastrous 90s. In a headlong race against the ticking clock they try to find the key to the time warp and re-write history.

Best-selling author Erika Pluhar’s new novel centres on a woman at a turning point in her life.

Fifty-one-year-old Hedwig Pflüger returns to the Vienna apartment hat she has inherited from her grandmother. She has kept away from the city and the old woman she grew up with for several decades. Now she faces a turning point in her life. The Viennese apartment is full of memories and in the stillness of the old building Hedwig starts to write about the past. The resulting account tells of a woman who struggled to meet the standardised requirements of her time; a woman who despite all her attempts kept sliding back into isolation and loneliness. But now, as she looks back and puts pen to paper, Hedwig learns to accept the present and open herself up to new challenges.

“Scent of the Soul” is a moving love story set amid the Syrian civil war and an authentic account of repression, revolution and the terror of the IS.

It's 2010 and the vibrant city of Damascus is full of life, but it’s the calm before the storm. Tarek, a Sunni Muslim, falls in love with Sanaa, who is Alevi. Against all odds, the two become a couple. But their secret meetings abruptly end when Tarek is called up. Through the military, he becomes entangled in acts of violence and antiques smuggling. He succeeds in fleeing to Europe, but when Sanaa tries to follow him, she is kidnapped by the IS and locked up. What Sanaa suffers in the IS prisons is based on authentic experiences, as Turjman cleverly weaves together fact and fiction to create a breathtaking novel that is highly relevant to our times.