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Coverabbildung von "Black Peter"

Peter Henisch - Black Peter

Das Songbook zum \"Schwarzen Peter\"

Peter Henisch’s novel follows the title’s hero over the course of half a century on his search for his father and happiness. It’s the story of the son of an Austrian tram conductress and a black American serviceman, born 1946 in Vienna. At this time, and indeed up to the 1970s, there were hardly any coloured people in Vienna and they were not regarded as a threat. By the 1990s, when Peter Jarosch briefly and unsuccessfully returns there after a spell in New Orleans, the issue of “foreigners” has become one of the most politically explosive in Austria. Peter’s colour, however, is not the essence of what makes him different. The real point is that he simply feels different. This is brought home to him in childhood when, cast as one of the Three Kings in the Nativity play, he, for obvious reasons, is the only one who does not have to make up. Henisch gives us in fact a substantial character study in which the fortunes of the hero-narrator subtly but sweepingly follow those of post-war Austria itself. A plus, moreover, for the Anglo-Saxon reader is the device of moving part of the action to the USA, to which Peter emigrates and where, one is led to surmise, he ends as an alcoholic bar pianist.

Book details

with CD
64 pages
format:140 x 220
ISBN: 9783701712465
Release date: 01.01.2001

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Authors
Peter Henisch

Born 1943 in Vienna; post-war childhood followed by reconstruction-era puberty; studied philosophy and psychology; co-founded “Wespennest” literary magazine with Helmut Zenker in 1969; a footloose author since the 1970s.

Henisch's debut novel “Die kleine Figur meines Vaters” was first published in 1975 (English translation “Negatives Of My Father” published in 1990). Many novels followed, including “Die schwangere Madonna” (2005), “Eine sehr kleine Frau” (2007), “Mortimer und Miss Molly” (2013), and “Suchbild mit Katze” (2016). He has received numerous awards, including the Austria Kunstpreis.  Most recently published by Residenz Verlag: “Der Jahrhundertroman” (2021).

Press

Peter Henisch writes the novel of the Second Republic … If, as Viennese feuilletonist Anton Kuh once wrote, greatest love is expressed in greatest accuracy, then Peter Henisch has written a great declaration of love to his city.

NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG, Hans Christian Kosler

 

This childhood story the carefully delineates the subtle paths of the corruption of the soul. A straightforward narration that impressively enables the reader to follow the child without getting caught up in the bitterness of the adult looking back.

FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU, Bernadette Conrad

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Coverabbildung von 'A grand finale for Novak'

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Coverabbildung von 'The Pregnant Madonna'

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Coverabbildung von 'The Small Figure of my Father'

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