Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a reading by the author and current writer-in-residence at Deutsches Haus at NYU, Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker, from his recent novel Fremde Seele, Dunkler Wald, followed by a conversation with the acclaimed Germanist, writer and mastermind of @neinquarterly, Eric Jarosinski.
About the book:
Alexander leaves the small village he grew up in and joins the army. A restless soul, he pays only sporadic visits home, leaving his younger brother Jakob to run the family farm on his own while their father secretly sells off piece by piece the land they are to inherit. As time passes, it’s the unfathomable that determines their lives: people perish, a woman is murdered, seemingly without a motive, a young man hangs himself; there are rumours about someone being blackmailed.
With great poetic calm and atmospheric strength, Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker tells about people who are bound by kinship, by murder and by a longing to escape all this: the entanglement, the accursed talk, the tightness of the place they live in and the tense atmosphere of a close-knit community. A timeless story of two brothers who are looking for salvation.
About the Panelists:
Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker was born in Austria in 1982. He studied agriculture, history and international development in Vienna. Among his novels are Der lange Gang über die Stationen (2008), Magdalenaberg (2009), Roter Flieder (2012) and Schwarzer Flieder (2014), together with the short story collection Zeichnungen (2015). He has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Berlin Art Prize and the Grand Austrian State Prize.
Once a professor of German language and literature, Eric Jarosinski has gone on to find his true calling as a former professor of German language and literature. He is currently the editor and sole author of @NeinQuarterly, the world's leading fictitious journal of utopian negation (found on Twitter), and a columnist for the German weekly Die Zeit. In addition, Jarosinski regularly takes his stand-up philosophy/sit-down comedy on the road as part of his ongoing Failed Intellectual Goodwill Tour. His writing and stage performances have been featured in numerous international publications, including the New Yorker, The Economist, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and El País. Jarosinski's first book, Nein. A Manifesto., was recently published in six languages.
Events at Deutsches Haus are free and open to the public. If you would like to attend this event, please send an email to deutscheshaus.rsvp@nyu.edu. As space at Deutsches Haus is limited, please arrive ten minutes prior to the event to ensure you get a good seat. Thank you!
"Fremde Seele, Dunkler Wald": An Evening with Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker and Eric Jarosinski is presented with the generous support of the Deutscher Literaturfonds.