Ein dokumentarischer Roman, wie man ihn sich brisanter und spektakulärer nicht ausdenken könnte.

It’s hard to imagine a more dramatic and controversial documentary novel. In 1938 the Sandgrube vineyard – one of the most famous vineyard estates in the Wachau valley – is owned by the Jewish businessman Paul Robitschek. His partner is August Rieger. Robitschek and the supposed baron are business partners, as well as glamorous lovers. Denunciations clear the path for the Aryanisation of an estate that would eventually become the basis of the famous Krems vintners’ cooperative – a name that is synonymous with wine and culture far beyond the national borders. This Aryanisation has to date never been the subject of investigation. The authors were able to recover a hoard of documents, enabling them to tell a staggering story of betrayal and loyalty, love and business, destruction and repression.

Barbara Frischmuth's stirring début: the narrow world of a Catholic boarding school, the pupils and their aspirations, the teachers and their rules – the expression of a strict upbringing designed to restrict freedom of feeling, thought and action.

An anonymous narrator makes a complaint to the postmaster of a small Bavarian country post office about the weaknesses of the postmen: one is an alcoholic, the second a womaniser, the third has succumbed to a cultural vice. Of course, the com-plainant’s discontent also applies to the butcher, the vet, the teachers and others – in short: to the inadequacy of the world. The writer, a local resident, keeps complaining about the postal delivery. It is unreliable, he says; the postal delivery is the most unreliable thing. If that’s the way it is, says Blumauer, if that local resident is complaining about the postal delivery, then the following will happen: I shall complain about my moped.

Neu zu entdecken: eine quicklebendige und erstaunlich aktuelle Mischung aus Science-Fiction, Märchen und Roman.

A girl by the name of Nevermind runs away from a camp and comes across the two-pleated toad, which is convinced it has created the world. Together they travel on and are joined by other creatures: a blind hen, a faint-hearted mouse and a loser called Little-Gottfried. All of them are attempting to escape the war, but this can now take on any shape imaginable, and the old, old world is heading for complete destruction. Something has to happen. Eliminate the headquarters! This sounds convincing enough, but nobody knows what or where the headquarters are, much less how they might be eliminated. Luckily the rats decide to step in – when did anything ever work out without the rats?! Can Nevermind succeed in halting the destruction?

Die präzise recherchierte Aufarbeitung eines Kriegsverbrechens, zugleich ein schonungsloses Porträt der Nachkriegszeit, die sich der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Naziverbrechen verweigert.

Kapfenberg in the Austrian Steiermark region, 1957: In the course of a custody battle, Anna Koinegg reports her child’s father, a former member of the Waffen-SS, for having participated in the execution of Jews. The accusation relates to the shooting of 29 Hungarian Jewish forced labourers in Jennersdorf in the early days of 1945, in which he was supposedly involved. But the political mood favours suppression and the charges are brushed under the carpet – until in 1966 the German authorities become involved and the case lands on the desk of former Spanish Civil War activist and detective Hans Landauer. Together the Mannheim lawyers and the disagreeable inspector from Vienna travel to Jennersdorf, to brake the wall of silence and uncover the traces of a massacre that nobody wants to remember...

Ein zutiefst humanistisches Buch, das Beziehungsfähigkeit und Konzentration gegen das kollektive Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit unserer Zeit setzt.

A book about responsibilities, the meaning of life and happiness in our age. We live in a hysterical time. A time that enables material wealth and incessant communication, but abandons the individual to his feelings isolation. After the failure of the big political utopias, our longing for happiness, attachment and closeness is all the greater, but we are trapped in our fragmented, accelerated day-to-day lives. The humanist psychologist and author Catalin Dorian Florescu counters this with the image of a serene, creative person capable of relating to others. In the autonomous concentration on their own self, the individual can overcome the attention crisis of our times and build meaningful relationships to others and the world around them.

A passionate plea for a political discourse that examines facts instead of exploiting emotions

With intellectual precision and an uncompromising approach, Olga Flor takes a stand against the kind of populist propaganda that is currently so eager to pose as representing the perceived majority opinion of a vaguely defined section of the public. These “politics of emotion” exploit justified fears, rather than analyse their true cause. The increasing lack of economic transparency and growing information density are their feeding ground, simplistic finger-pointing and “gut feelings” their ideological capital. Against this, Olga Flor sets the need for a public discourse that permits dissension and doesn’t shy away from the complexity of the facts, that aims to enlighten rather than obscure.

Lustvoll böse und unglaublich komisch: ein brillant erzählter, zeitgenössischer Hochstaplerroman.

“Bad people are always fine.” With this mantra and other cynical remarks, the narrator has made himself the revered as well as hated focal point of a bored upper class clique. What nobody knows is that he lives off badly paid mini jobs and a very unusual gift: alcohol turns him into a mind reader. He’s a fraud who exploits the stupidity of the shallow hipster gang, but he’s also a charming improvisation artist who finds true love in the glamorous Tarán. Driven by necessity, he entangles himself in an increasingly absurd web of lies, in which tattooed Mafia bosses and wild car chases are part of everyday life. But this balancing act only succeeds until Mr Neubauer turns up...

Mitteleuropäisches Panorama und präziser gesellschaftlicher Befund: Peter Rosei schreibt pointiert und unerbittlich über unsere orientierungslose Zeit.

Jana, the ambitious daughter of a tired-out hotel owner in the Slovakian Tatras, only has her beauty to help her realise her dreams of a better and more exciting life in the wealthy West. She encounters the profiteer Gstettner, who conducts his murky dealings from Vienna. No matter whether it’s fake designer goods or desperate refugees, Gstettner will trade with anything. Tone Kral, a farmer’s son from the Slovenian Karst region who ekes out a living as a waiter and gigolo, and the aged Viennese theatre critic Kalman complete the quartet. Eager for life, the four characters try to make their way in the grey zone between the old and new political order.

Women are the best and sometimes also the worst thing that can happen to a man

Uli Brée, creator of the Austrian satirical TV series “Vorstadtweiber”, tells stories about women. Stories that are moving or refreshingly funny, sincere or dishonest, poetically condensed or truthfully remembered. Nothing in this book actually occurred quite like that, yet it’s exactly how it happened. Uli Brée shines a light into dark corners, pays homage to bygone amours, lures us into a world of real and virtual desires and reveals himself as one who never stopped gazing in wonder at the strange yet familiar world of women. But most of all he reminds us of our own amorous adventures – as well as the subsequent comedowns. “A head for heights” speaks about first sex, crushes, moist boyhood fantasies, absurd dreams, the great passion, hormones and chocolate, and journeys through a dating app. It is a sensual and almost honest book which Uli Brée dedicates to all women, from A for adorable to Z for zonked.