I now no longer use the better words. Ilse Aichinger (1921-2016)
was one of the most important writers of postwar Austrian and
German literature. Born in 1921 to a Jewish mother, she survived
World War II in Vienna, while her twin sister Helga escaped with
one of the last Kindertransporte to England in 1938. Many of their
relatives were deported and murdered. Those losses make themselves
felt throughout Aichinger's writing, which since her first and only
novel, The Greater Hope, in 1948, has highlighted displacement,
estrangement, and a sharp skepticism toward language. By 1976, when
she published Bad Words in German, her writing had become
powerfully poetic, dense, and experimental. This volume presents
the whole of the original Bad Words in English for the first time,
along with a selection of Aichinger's other short stories of the
period; together, they demonstrate her courageous effort to create
and deploy a language unmarred by misleading certainties,
preconceived rules, or implicit ideologies. In the following
decades Aichinger's work became increasingly dense, poetic, and
experimential, culminating in the iconic Schlechte Worter (Bad
Words) in 1976. This entire volume, along with a selection of short
stories from previous books in this period, is presented here for
the first time in English translation. Any false promise of a
coherent, masterful world (with its insistence of "better words")
is left behind. Instead, we have "bad words" minor everyday objects
and the freedom that comes with vigilant and playful disobedience.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
