Barbara Frischmuth - The Convent School

Die enge Welt eines katholischen Mädchenpensionats, seiner Schülerinnen und ihrer Wünsche, seiner Lehrerinnen und ihrer Regeln – Ausdruck einer konsequenten Erziehung zur Unfreiheit des Empfindens, Denkens und Handelns. Der Schlafsaal ist der Ort, an dem wir die Nacht verbringen. Wo wir lachen, wenn es einen Anlass gibt – mit vorgehaltener Hand, den Umständen entsprechend – und wo wir weinen, wenn es sein muss – wenn wir glauben, dass alle anderen schlafen.

Dazzling blue beetles, furry moths, bold grasshoppers and shimmering dragonflies are the heroes of Barbara Frischmuth’s new short stories. Yet when we look more closely, we realise they are about more than just carefully observed insects: they are about the delicate symbioses between humans and nature, about rare hybrid beings, half girl and half beetle, about talking dragonflies and about what we can learn from the ingeniousness of grasshoppers. Written with affectionate humour, these stories reveal how profoundly human beings are a part of nature. As gardener and poet Barbara Frischmutch never tires of repeating: our only chance of survival is to develop a relationship with nature based on respect and mindfulness.

Passionate gardener Barbara Frischmuth knows that she will always be a guest in her garden. With rakes, shovels, secateurs and a few other simple tools developed over thousands of years, we work the soil and plants, digging, cutting, planting, arranging, distributing and harvesting. Above all, however, our hands can use gardening tools to interact with the actual inhabitants of the garden: grasses and insects, flowers and worms, roots and snails. The history of gardening tools is the history of our relationship with nature and everything that lives in it. Barbara Frischmuth talks gratefully about what her hands need in the garden.

Nature and culture cannot be kept separate. They continuously intertwine, visibly and invisibly, but not always harmoniously. From the outset, humankind has tried to tame and subjugate nature. And the more spectacularly successful we are in doing this, the less we think about how dependent on it we still are. This shows most clearly in the language we use to try and label and describe nature – be it in the fictional, poetic, factual or scientific context. In her essay, Barbara Frischmuth seeks to illustrate how nature is discussed in literature, culture, science and in everyday life. To underestimate nature would be perilous. To value and even love it equals human enlightenment. The essay series UNRUHE BEWAHREN (Keep Uncalm) is a response to an increasingly uncomfortable present tendency. At the heart of modern-day progress lies a wasteful unrest, while the past is progressively devalued and the future is robbed of substance. This is opposed by the principle of anachronism. Engaged contemporaneity should be coupled with the courage for caution and a passion for the outmoded. UNRUHE BEWAHREN is therefore also the theme to which the spring and autumn lecture series at Akademie Graz are dedicated. Edited by Astrid Kury, Thomas Macho, Peter Strasser Advice: Harald Klauhs

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?

Barbara Frischmuth is a master of stylistic abundance: full of compassion she takes a sometimes down to earth, sometimes humorously-grotesque look at the trials and tribulations of human interaction. Frischmuth tells of hellos and good-byes. From the story of a lovesick young archeologist who goes into hiding at her sister’s house and lives through a cathartic experience to a substitute fight between a grandmother and her granddaughter over a misplaced nail file. With her playful narration Frischmuth gives us glimpses of a simple truth: Time and again, reality is an experiment.

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 complainant'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."

Following his time as an apprentice Bruno Melzer’s hopes for his time as His Own Master are not fulfilled. The dream of independence soon proves to be a fragile utopia. He undergoes a painful disillusion process doing monotonous work on a factory conveyor belt, then loses his remaining vestiges of freedom as a one night stand makes him a father. But along with the story of the worker Bruno, this famous novel paints a broader picture of social conditions and attitudes at the time, and remains highly relevant today.

"Whatever you need, you take" Vienna in a gold rush: World War two is over, the black markets are booming, and shady characters are on their way to a new life. The brilliant first part of Rosei's cycle "Wiener Dateien" (Vienna files) span the period from corruption in postwar Vienna to the fancy homes of affluent business people in the 1980s. With artistic ease, he creates an intricate web entangling the lives of parvenus and bon vivants, professors and politicians, perfect wives and superwomen. At the center of it all are Alfred and Georg, two very different friends: One is an anarchist, the other a baby boomer. Rosei's novel is intense, enthusiastically written prose portraying a city where everything has its price and nothing is sacred…