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Coverabbildung von "Der Nachlass"

Evelyn Grill - The Legacy

Writing with her usual concision and black humour, Evelyn Grill offers a detailed depiction of loneliness in dark times.

An old woman sits in an armchair. Her mind turns to her Aunt Paula, from whom she inherited the piece of furniture, and to her own enforced solitude. Outside, the pandemic is raging, and she has been designated a ‘vulnerable person’. As such, she has been sequestered away as a precautionary measure – ‘kept in a sterile environment’. Maybe she’ll turn one hundred under this bell jar. Aunt Paula, on the other hand, didn’t even make it to fifty. She was deported, and the armchair is all that’s left of her. The old woman’s thoughts – sometimes clear as crystal, but growing increasingly confused – keep returning to the lives that are protected and those that are considered ‘worthless’, to social violence – and to the pleasures of not being bothered by anybody.

Book details

112 pages
format:125 x 205
ISBN: 9783701717538
Release date: 11.10.2022

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  • World rights available
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Authors
Evelyn Grill

born in Garsten, Upper Austria in 1942, Grill is a freelance writer living in Freiburg im Breisgau and since 2017 back in Linz. In 2017 she was awarded the OÖ-Landeskulturpreis für Literatur. Published by Residenz Verlag: "Vanitas oder Hofstätters Begierden" (Vanitas or Hofstaetter's Desire) (2005, nominated for Deutscher Buchpreis), "Der Sammler" (The Collector) (2006, awarded the Otto-Stoessl-Preis), "Wilma" (new edition 2007), "Das römische Licht" (The Roman Light) (2008), "Das Antwerpener Testament" (The Antwerpian Will) (2011), "Der Sohn des Knochenzählers" (The bondedigger's son) (2013) "Der Begabte" (The Talent) (2019)  and most recently "Der Nachlass" (The Legacy) (2022).

Press

Entstanden ist und bleiben wird ein poetisches Memorial, das frei von jedem Pathos, streng in der stilistischen Eleganz und mit einem anrührenden Hauch von Wehmut das Band zwischen den Überlebenden und den Toten knüpft. „Der Nachlass“ ist das persönlichste Buch, das die 1942 geborene Evelyn Grill bisher geschrieben hat, eine fein ziselierte literarische Goldschmiedearbeit.
[Quelle: Lerke von Saalfeld, FAZ]

In ihrem Roman frönt Evelyn Grill ihrer Lust am Aufdecken gesellschaftlicher Unzumutbarkeiten und schon sich dabei selbst nicht.
[Quelle: Christa Gürtler, DIE FURCHE]

In einem Monolog, der manchmal Jelinek’schen Schalk aufblitzen lässt, räsoniert die Frau über diese merkwürdige Gegenwart.
[Quelle: Linda Stift, DIE PRESSE]

Die Sprache ist klar und beinahe nüchtern. Das bietet ihr die Möglichkeit, ganz im personalen Erzählstil durch die Brille der alten Frau auf die Welt zu blicken, die sich nicht erst seit Corona verändert hat. Die Situation des Lockdowns, der aus medizinischer und epidemiologischer Sicht auch hier, auch der alten Frau, einsichtig ist, offenbart wie ein Teilchenbeschleuniger die Frage, wie wir als Gesellschaft miteinander umgehen wollen. Und so ist Evelyn Grill wieder einmal eine Geschichte gelungen, die den Finger in eine schmerzhafte Wunde legt.“
[Quelle: Sabine Zaplin, BAYERN 24]

Evelyn Grill erzählt mit sanfter Ironie, die hin und wieder zum Schmunzeln verführt, mit stupender psychologischer Klarsicht.
[Quelle: Marianne Gruber, ÖGL]

Ein sehr persönlicher Roman, der von Einsamkeit erzählt. Sehr zu empfehlen.
[Quelle: Elfriede Bergold, MEDIENPROFILE]

Evelyn Grill versteht es, jene Mischung aus Einsicht und Verwirrung nachzuzeichnen, die Menschen befällt, die nicht mehr fokussiert nach vorne blicken können, weil die Zukunft begrenzt und die Fürsorge der anderen erdrückend ist.
[Quelle: Astrid Graf-Wintersberger, WELT DER FRAUEN]

Virtuos verknüpft Evelyn Grill in diesen Meditationen Alltägliches mit Tragischem, lässt aber auch Heiterkeit und Komik durchschimmern. „Der Nachlass“ wird dadurch zu einer melancholischen, aber auch unterhaltsamen Lektüre.
[Quelle: Ingrid Kainzner, BIBLIOTHEKSNACHRICHTEN]

In ihren schmalen Roman verpackt Evelyn Grill beinahe lapidar kleine und große Lebensthemen.
[Quelle: Barbara Jany, OBERÖSTERREICHISCHER KULTURBERICHT]

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Coverabbildung von 'Der Begabte'

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Coverabbildung von 'The Bonedigger’s Son'

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Coverabbildung von 'Das Antwerpener Testament'

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Coverabbildung von 'The Roman Light'

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Coverabbildung von 'Wilma'

Evelyn Grill - Wilma

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Coverabbildung von 'Vanitas or Hofstaetter’s Desire'

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It was not love that drove the ambitious lawyer Alois Hofstätter into marriage with the actress Olga, the much older widow of a deceased client; it was her standing and her fortune, her mature erotic charisma and the not insignificant circumstance that she was expecting his child. Hofstätter's true and eternal love belongs to art, and his passion to gambling. His wife pays his debts, and the child has meanwhile grown into a youth, in whom the practising aesthete finds compensation for the unreasonable physical and intellectual demands of his fading wife. The structure of the illusory upper-middle-class world that satisfies the decadent vanity of both is brittle – in the field of tension between outward prestige and inward discontent. A bitter power struggle which ultimately leads to a catastrophe. With a ruthless eye for detail, Evelyn Grill draws a portrait of a callous but pitiable dandy for whom the aestheticising of everyday life replaces the education of the feelings. Grill sketches her characters in a few confident strokes, in a language devoid of flourishes or empty phrases. She avoids sentimentality and false pity. This is way the way stories can still be told, without the all too palatable flavouring of a moral message (Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler).

Coverabbildung von 'The Collector'

Evelyn Grill - The Collector

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Collecting as an obsession: the touching story of a junkaholic defying throwaway society. Alfred Irgang is a collector. However, he does not collect stamps or antiques, but simply anything that he comes across: old newspapers, false teeth that are as good as new, and other things that naïve members of the throwaway society surrender to the garbage collection. Accordingly, his apartment and various cellar compartments are remarkably filled to the brim, which in turn leads to considerable difficulties with the property managers, which, on the other hand, does not keep him from his hunt for treasures. Does not a lady’s corsage have as much of a story to tell as a Biedermeier davenport? At the regular’s table, where a group of scientists and art lovers meet, the collector likes to present his treasures but naturally meets little appreciation. When after an “occupational accident” he is confined to a hospital bed, the regulars see their chance to force their blessings on him …. It is with subtle irony that Evelyn Grill tells of a society that considers itself to be good, while the motto “to live and let live” is buried by the insatiable desire to usurp a maladjusted person.

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