There’s no reason to give up, says Mieze Medusa, writing with humour and warmth – and especially not if you’re a woman!

Friends and partners, mothers and daughters: Mieze Medusa’s captivating new novel is all about women and their right to not give a monkey’s about ‘what people say about them’. Laura, a native of Tyrol, lives in Innsbruck and hates skiing, cosy romantic chalets and the magic of the Alps. Forty-year-old Frederike, known as Fred, still hasn’t settled down and is frequently out of work. She lives in Vienna, previously with Marlis – until she falls in love with musician Milla YoloBitch. Marlis wants a baby, Fred wants Milla, Milla wants to rap, Laura wants to draw comics, Laura’s sister Isabella wants a family and a career. And although not all their wishes will come true, in this novel Mieze Medusa makes a passionate case for allowing women to be, become and want anything they please.

In a novel at once merciless and tender, Moritz Franz Beichl explores lovesickness, depression and what it means to have a lust for life.

Moritz Franz Beichl’s compelling debut novel is an unrestrained hymn to desire, but also bears unvarnished witness to the realities of living with depression and bipolar disorder. When the narrator is abandoned by his boyfriend and – after a suicide attempt – is admitted to a psychiatric ward, he begins messaging his lost love. He texts obsessively, without hoping for a reply, but is lucid and ironic when discussing conditions at the hospital. After being discharged, he tries to find a precarious balance in his new life between ordinary everyday reality and excess. Building on these intimate, confessional passages, Beichl explores society’s treatment of feelings and bodies, of non-normative psyches and queer desires.

Two vociferous thinkers have teamed up to write a passionate plea in favour of action and against fatalism and apathy.

The warming of our planet is a global emergency. We have altered the world to such an extent that the resulting change threatens not only us and our health, but the entire planet Earth. The only remedy is a comprehensive transformation of our way of life and economic systems. Yet most concerned individuals assume that they themselves cannot make a difference, given the extent of the threat. This also applies to scientists, as well as economic and political decision makers. But that’s not the case – as this spirited book points out. In 'Leap across the Abyss', physicist Harald Lesch and doctor Martin Herrmann issue a joint appeal for people to overcome their state of paralysis and promote the "big transformation".

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?