About the Bachmann Prize – 45th TddL: First day, first heated debates


“Writing is half the battle. Reading is the whole of life. ”With this wisdom from the writer Friedericke Mayröcker, ORF State Director Karin Bernhard opened the 45th Days of German-Language Literature on Wednesday and promised:“ In this sense, life is negotiated in Klagenfurt.

For example the life of “Ruth”, whom Julia Weber (CH) has a woman address at the bus stop. Ruth seduces her. The jurors saw it as a “wonderful, aesthetic” way of writing about sex (Vea Kaiser) or a “dusty text” that uses familiar images (Philipp Tingler).

“Die Woche” by Heike Geißler (D) caused a heated debate: For Mara Delius, the reader was “showered with a cargo bike load of the sensitivities of the self-appointed proletarian princess”. For Klaus Kastberger it is a text that gets better and better with more frequent reading, but offers too few answers. According to Insa Wilke, the author could be satisfied with the rejection of the text: “The text evoked what it wanted. Namely not to say what one is used to in literature and what the world is like. ”Which in turn did not apply to all jurors as proof of the functioning of the text.

Vea Kaiser was “incredibly enthusiastic” after Necati Öziris (D) reading of “Tomorrow I wake up and then life begins”: A terminally ill son introduces himself to his father. “In the last paragraph comes the explanation, that is unnecessary,” says Michael Wiederstein, also praising it.

Magda Woitzuck presented “The Other Woman”: a text that is “over-spelled” for some and “good pictures” for others. “Do you have to write just because you have the technical means to do so?” Asked Tingler after the reading by Katharina J. Ferner from Salzburg of “1709.54 kilometers”. The text tries to translate social problems into a dream language, said Wilke.

There is more literature today from 10 a.m. on 3sat, at 12 p.m. Verena Gotthardt from Carinthia will read.