Reading & Conversation: Birgit Birnbacher

Birgit Birnbacher >They Want to Tell Us< Birgit Birnbacher, born in 1985, lives as a writer in Salzburg. Her debut novel "We Without Whale" (2016) was awarded the Literature Prize of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, and she has received numerous other awards, including the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2019. Her latest novels published by Zsolnay are "I by My Side" (2020) and "What We Live On" (2023). Oz is different and struggles in school, but this time something really stupid has happened to him. On the way home, he wishes for at least a small catastrophe to distract his mother from the letter from the teacher that he has to give her. When Oz gets home, Ann – also equipped with a buzzing nervous disposition – is not in the celebratory mood one would expect for report cards; in fact, something has really happened. Grandma Zilly, who lives in the mountains, is gone... "Subtle and at the same time crystal clear, translucent and subtle" (Süddeutsche Zeitung), Birgit Birnbacher also tells in her new novel about people – and about the opportunities that wild growth in thinking opens up. Do those who cannot adapt actually have something to counter our overstimulated nature and environment? Admission: FREE