Anna Mitgutsch's books get under your skin. They are intense and painful, tell stories of alienation and love, of memory and missed chances, of loss and mourning rituals and of Jewish lives on two continents. Born in Linz, Austria, the far travelled writer taught German and American literature at Austrian and American universities. Boston, USA, has been her home for three decades. Her most important works include “Three Daughters (Die Züchtigung)”, “Jakob” (Ausgrenzung), "Lover, Traitor: A Jerusalem Story"(Abschied von Jerusalem), “In Foreign Cities” (In fremden Städten) and “House of Childhood” (Haus der Kindheit). In addition to her ten novels, she has also published translations and two volumes of essays. She has received many awards for her work, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Salzburg, the Solothurn Literature Prize, and the Adalbert Stifter Prize.
ANNA MITGUTSCH
Author.
Anna Mitgutsch / © Bogenberger
“In every life there is once a moment when happiness reaches the limits of the imaginable.”
Literatur muss alles dürfen
Interview mit Anna Mitgutsch
Today, the chances of social advancement through education in Austria have declined again. It's probably also a matter of pragmatic considerations. In my family, I'm the only one with a doctorate - and I earn the least of all of them. What are the career opportunities with only a Matura (A Levels/High School Diploma) or a humanities degree?
Growing up in a repressive environment was also the theme of your first novel, "Die Züchtigung" (Three Daughters). The "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" wrote at the time that you had hit the nerve of age because it was also a reckoning with the generation before. What would a book have to have today to hit that nerve? I don't know, because I no longer understand the zeitgeist. Probably one would have to write an environmental thriller.
Which young authors do you read? None. (Laughs.) I want to learn something from reading. Some shooting stars are quite overrated. Besides, there are so many things I still want to read
You once said that you needed to be in the USA to write, because you don't find inspiration in Linz? I live here again and it is pleasant to live here. But there is no lively cultural biotope, little that really inspires. Maybe it's because we're in the provinces here, or because of the saturation and consumer mentality of the people. I just returned from Boston, I love that city and its vibrancy. The bookshops are full of new publications, people are talking about them. I wrote my acceptance speech for the Stifter Prize in Boston in a coffee house.
As a Jew, how do you experience the rise in anti-Semitism? Anti-Semitism was always there. Only new facets were added, from the left, from political Islam. Personally, I'm not afraid for myself, at most I am just for my son.
In your most recent novel, "The Approach (Die Annäherung)", you address the Second World War and questions of guilt. I often hear from the audience at readings that the subject has already been dealt with enough. Then I ask: Do you know how old Anne Frank would be today? (Anne Frank, the author of the "Diary of Anne Frank"), would be 90 years old today if the National Socialists had not murdered her. All that was not long ago! She could be celebrating Passover among her children and grandchildren today. She would probably have made a career as a writer.
Saskia Blatakes / © wienerzeitung.at
“Without the need to at least approach the unspeakable with the useless means available to us as human beings, there would be no art that lasts centuries, millennia, no religion, no philosophy, and the world would be an even bleaker place”
