Image © Jens Oellermann
We welcome award-winning Austrian writer Marie Gamillscheg for a book reading followed by a Q&A. Gamillscheg will read English translations from her books Alles was glänzt and Aufruhr der Meerestiere.
The reading will be followed by an Austrian wine reception.
About the Books
Alles was glänzt: Something is happening deep in the tunnels of the old mine - and everyone in the village can feel it. The landlady Susa, for example, when she unscrews the pumps from the ketchup containers when working nights at the "Espresso". Or old Wenisch, her last regular. Even the mayor, when he's not on a convalescent cure. But it was the taciturn Martin who felt it first, until one morning he lost control of his car. It is as if the mountain is trembling, as if it could collapse at any moment. For the young Teresa and the newcomer Merih, things are clear: she wants to finally get away from the run-down town, while he is looking for a fresh start - here of all places.
Aufruhr der Meerestiere: Luise is smart, Luise is independent, Luise is an island. Luise has earned an excellent reputation as a marine biologist, her specialty: the sea walnut, a ghostly illuminated jellyfish in the darkness of the oceans. When Luise is asked to travel to Graz for a project with a renowned zoo, she doesn't hesitate for long. But Graz is also her home town, the home of her absent and suddenly ill father. And this is the story of years of speechlessness and alienation between them. Marie Gamillscheg tells the story of liberation from the constraints of childhood, from one's own body and from the laws that others have made for one with playful humor. At the same time, it is an attempt to grasp the impossibility of a relationship: between man and animal, man and woman, father and daughter.
About the Author
Marie Gamillscheg was born in Graz, Austria, in 1992 and studied cross-cultural communication in Graz and Lyon before getting her MA in Eastern European studies from the Free University Berlin. Her debut novel Alles was glänzt was awarded the Debut Prize of the Austrian Book Prize in 2018, her second novel Aufruhr der Meerestiere was nominated for the German Book Prize 2022 and the Clemens Brentano Prize 2023. She works as a freelance writer and translator in Leipzig, and is currently a Writer-in-Residence at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.