ACFNY RECOMMENDS | GERMAN BOOK CLUB | EVA MENASSE | VIENNA

The July German Book Club at the Goethe-Institut New York will read and discuss Vienna by Eva Menasse, one of Austria’s finest contemporary writers.

The novel tells the story of a Jewish family in Vienna over the course of a century, a story into which she incorporates the history of her own family. It is a funny and absurd novel about a family that really doesn’t have much to laugh about, yet whose dark sense of humor keeps their heads above water.

“…set in a vividly imagined bourgeois Vienna, with it’s bridge parties, tennis clubs, and an everyday anti-Semitism that’s shocking in its casualness.” TIME OUT

The discussion will be in German.
Vienna (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2005; btb ISBN: 978-3-442-74040-6).

Austrian writer Eva Menasse was born in 1970 in Vienna. She studied German language and Literature and History and worked as a journalist for the Viennese news magazine »Profil« and as a cultural editor for the FAZ. In 2000, she reported for weeks on the trial against the Holocaust denier David Irving. Menasse’s first published book addressed this case and appeared under the title »Der Holocaust vor Gericht« (2000, tr: The Holocaust on Trial).

On light of Menasse’s continued career as a journalist, it is not surprising that her first novel, »Vienna« (2005) is marked by her journalistic experience. The novel was successful and has been translated into many languages.

Aside from her work as a journalist and novelist, Eva Menasse also wrote two children’s books in the late 1990s together with her brother Robert and her sister-in-law Elisabeth Menasse, which were published as »letzte Mä«(1997, tr: The Last Fairytale Princess) and »mäMann«(1998, tr: The Most Powerful Man).

The author has received awards for both her journalistic work and her literary writing. In 1995, she received an honorable mention from the Claus-Gatterer-Prize for socially dedicated journalism. Her novel »Vienna« won the Rolf-Heyne Début Prize in 2005. Eva Menasse has lived in Berlin since 2003.

A German language review is available at the Perlentaucher website.

More information is available at the Goethe-Institut website.

VENUE
Goethe-Institut New York
72 Spring Street, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10012
(212) 439-8700

Admission is free. RSVP required.
To register for this event, please email burney@newyork.goethe.org