Eva Menasse
Author of Vienna
About the Author
Image credit: Eva Menasse, Leipzig Bookfair 2013 By Lesekreis - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25193905
Works by Eva Menasse
2005 1 copy
Tilgivelige dødssynder 1 copy
Dyr for viderekomne 1 copy
Associated Works
Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation (2017) — Contributor — 165 copies, 5 reviews
Donauwalzer am Irawadi: Exil in England, Kampf in Burma, Rückkehr nach Wien (2011) — Foreword — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Menasse, Eva
- Legal name
- Menasse, Eva
- Birthdate
- 1970-05-11
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- journalist
novelist - Organizations
- Akademie der Künste Berlin
- Awards and honors
- Jakob-Wassermann-Literaturpreis (2023)
Mainzer Stadtschreiber (2019)
Ludwig-Börne-Preis (2019)
Stipendiatin der Villa Massimo in Rom (2015)
Jonathan Swift – Internationaler Literaturpreis für Satire und Humor (2015)
Heinrich-Böll-Preis (2013) (show all 7)
Gerty-Spies-Literaturpreis (2013) - Relationships
- Menasse, Robert (half-brother)
Kumpfmüller, Michael (husband) - Short biography
- Eva Menasse, geboren 1970 in Wien, begann als Journalistin bei 'Profil' in Wien. Sie wurde Redakteurin der 'Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung', begleitete den Prozeß um den Holocaust-Leugner David Irving in London und arbeitete nach einem Aufenthalt in Prag als Kultur-Korrespondentin in Wien. Sie lebt seit 2003 in Berlin. Vienna ist ihre erste literarische Veröffentlichung und wurde von der Kritik und Lesern begeistert aufgenommen.
- Nationality
- Austria
- Birthplace
- Vienna, Austria
- Places of residence
- Berlin, Germany
- Map Location
- Austria
Members
Reviews
Dunkelblum is a (fictitious) small Austrian town close to the Hungarian border in the province of Burgenland. As in many other parts of Europe, bad things happened here around the end of World War II, and the local people who were involved one way or the other have kept very quiet about them. But now it’s 1989, and there aren’t that many people left who even know where the bodies are buried (assuming that there were bodies to be buried…). A team of students has arrived in Dunkelblum to show more rehabilitate the long-abandoned and overgrown Jewish cemetery, a local farmer looking for an underground watercourse has stumbled on human remains in a field, and it looks as though all kinds of nastiness is about to be exposed. Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, East German refugees are starting to arrive in their Trabi’s, hoping that the Hungarians will let them out.
On one level this novel, written thirty years later, seems to be a book about how 1989 turned out not to be the “end of history” year when Europe shook off the legacies of World War II — the opening of borders failed to act as a magical cure to inequalities between east and west, our new political optimism and European identity failed to put an end to the petty self-interest of racism and nationalist bigotry. But it’s also more generally a novel about small communities and how they keep secrets. Everyone in Dunkelblum is keeping secrets from their neighbours, their parents, their children, and (most of all) from outsiders. Ironically, we, as strangers and readers of the novel, are the only people who get an inkling of the truth. The characters themselves, being too closely involved, repeatedly make false connections or fail to see the obvious. And it isn’t always completely clear that knowing the truth would help anyone (even assuming that there is one clear truth in all that mess…).
Menasse’s narrative style is clever — she builds a kind of recursive picture of the community, constantly shifting the point of view from her central characters to minor characters who don’t initially appear to have anything much to do with the story, but actually turn out to be central to one part of it. This works well to give us the illusion of a complete picture of a community that in real life would contain several hundred people. By the end of the book we feel that we know Dunkelblum — and of course we do, because despite its provincial Austrianness, it’s exactly like any small community anywhere. show less
On one level this novel, written thirty years later, seems to be a book about how 1989 turned out not to be the “end of history” year when Europe shook off the legacies of World War II — the opening of borders failed to act as a magical cure to inequalities between east and west, our new political optimism and European identity failed to put an end to the petty self-interest of racism and nationalist bigotry. But it’s also more generally a novel about small communities and how they keep secrets. Everyone in Dunkelblum is keeping secrets from their neighbours, their parents, their children, and (most of all) from outsiders. Ironically, we, as strangers and readers of the novel, are the only people who get an inkling of the truth. The characters themselves, being too closely involved, repeatedly make false connections or fail to see the obvious. And it isn’t always completely clear that knowing the truth would help anyone (even assuming that there is one clear truth in all that mess…).
Menasse’s narrative style is clever — she builds a kind of recursive picture of the community, constantly shifting the point of view from her central characters to minor characters who don’t initially appear to have anything much to do with the story, but actually turn out to be central to one part of it. This works well to give us the illusion of a complete picture of a community that in real life would contain several hundred people. By the end of the book we feel that we know Dunkelblum — and of course we do, because despite its provincial Austrianness, it’s exactly like any small community anywhere. show less
Eva Menasse is an award winning author, born in Austria but resident in Berlin for twenty years. Amongst the accolades, her novel Vienna translated by the late Anthea Bell, was shortlisted for the (now defunct) 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK. Charlotte Collins, (who has also translated Robert Seethaler's compelling novellas and Nino Haratischvili's chunksters) has done a superb job of bringing this novel to English readers and I won't be surprised if it is nominated for the show more International Booker...
Set in 1989 when the Soviet bloc was collapsing, Darkenbloom is a long, complex and discursive novel which gradually reveals the WW2 secrets of an Austrian town on the border with Hungary.
Not everyone will like the way the book is constructed, but I thought it was brilliant because it mirrors real life when people are confronted by change which they can no longer avoid. The narrator has a wry, ironic and discursive style, always teasing with hints that there is more to know but it's being withheld for the time being. There are multiple characters, and sometimes they are referred to by their first names or nicknames, and at other times by their surnames or their relationships or occupations. There is a list of characters at the front of the book but it was no good to me because I was so absorbed in the story that I forgot that it was there.
Details accumulate and the pieces gradually fit together, but the reader has to be alert, has to remember, and has to recognise dissembling and lies. Just the same as if we were there ourselves, trying to make sense of things that happened a long time ago and our sources of information are people who are lying, muddled, or just as confused as we are. The novel demonstrates with awful clarity just how hard it is to piece together the truth when it's been hidden for so long for reasons of guilt, malice, trauma, regret, shame or a desire to 'move on' because the harm can't be undone. This is relevant to all of us because there are few countries around the world that don't have some kind of uncomfortable past that some people want to dig up, and others who would rather let sleeping dogs lie.
Now all this sounds very sobering, and at times it is, but there are also priceless moments of humour like this one. The inhabitants of Darkenbloom are meeting in the Hotel Tüffer, a pub formerly owned by Jewish people who were ejected from it, to the benefit of the barmaid Resi Reschen who has 'owned' it ever since. They are there to discuss the contentious water plan which has caused alarm in some places because (though nobody says so out loud) the works might dig up the long-hidden site of the massacre of the Jews.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/02/21/darkenbloom-2021-english-2024-by-eva-menasse... show less
Set in 1989 when the Soviet bloc was collapsing, Darkenbloom is a long, complex and discursive novel which gradually reveals the WW2 secrets of an Austrian town on the border with Hungary.
Not everyone will like the way the book is constructed, but I thought it was brilliant because it mirrors real life when people are confronted by change which they can no longer avoid. The narrator has a wry, ironic and discursive style, always teasing with hints that there is more to know but it's being withheld for the time being. There are multiple characters, and sometimes they are referred to by their first names or nicknames, and at other times by their surnames or their relationships or occupations. There is a list of characters at the front of the book but it was no good to me because I was so absorbed in the story that I forgot that it was there.
Details accumulate and the pieces gradually fit together, but the reader has to be alert, has to remember, and has to recognise dissembling and lies. Just the same as if we were there ourselves, trying to make sense of things that happened a long time ago and our sources of information are people who are lying, muddled, or just as confused as we are. The novel demonstrates with awful clarity just how hard it is to piece together the truth when it's been hidden for so long for reasons of guilt, malice, trauma, regret, shame or a desire to 'move on' because the harm can't be undone. This is relevant to all of us because there are few countries around the world that don't have some kind of uncomfortable past that some people want to dig up, and others who would rather let sleeping dogs lie.
Now all this sounds very sobering, and at times it is, but there are also priceless moments of humour like this one. The inhabitants of Darkenbloom are meeting in the Hotel Tüffer, a pub formerly owned by Jewish people who were ejected from it, to the benefit of the barmaid Resi Reschen who has 'owned' it ever since. They are there to discuss the contentious water plan which has caused alarm in some places because (though nobody says so out loud) the works might dig up the long-hidden site of the massacre of the Jews.
Last of all, the mayor's secretary, Frau Balaskó, teetered across the square from the town hall. A short, spherical person, she floated in on the highest of heels, an astonishing display of almost artistic balance. She felt that these shoes were a requirement of her position, but at the end of the working day she took them off as soon as she got to the car park and swapped them for the slippers she kept under the passenger seat. Today, though, she was here in her official capacity, and so was balanced on her thin, perilous needles. Keeping her gaze firmly fixed in front of her and an eye out for potential obstacles, she squeezed through to a free chair, and only when she was happily seated and the blood had begun to teach her squashed toes again did she look up. (p.331)
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/02/21/darkenbloom-2021-english-2024-by-eva-menasse... show less
Was wissen wir wirklich über uns selbst? Und was vom anderen?
In dreizehn Kapiteln zerlegt Eva Menasse die Biografie einer Frau in ihre unterschiedlichen Aspekte, zeigt sie als Mutter und Tochter, als Freundin, Mieterin und Patientin, als flüchtige Bekannte und treulose Ehefrau. Aus diesem Mosaik tritt auf magische Weise ein kühner Roman hervor, der wie nebenbei die Fragen nach Wahrnehmung und Wahrheit stellt.
Zu Beginn ist Xane Molin vierzehn Jahre alt und erlebt mit ihrer besten Freundin show more einen dramatischen Sommer. Am Ende ist sie Großmutter und versucht, für den Rest des Lebenswegs das Steuer noch einmal herumzureißen. Dazwischen nähern wir uns ihr aus verschiedensten Blickwinkeln: Da ist ihr Vermieter, der sie misstrauisch beobachtet und eigene Geheimnisse hat, da ist der Überlebende eines Bürgerkriegs, der sich in sie verliebt, da ist die ungestüme Jugendfreundin, die Xane nach Jahrzehnten plötzlich nicht mehr zu ertragen glaubt. show less
In dreizehn Kapiteln zerlegt Eva Menasse die Biografie einer Frau in ihre unterschiedlichen Aspekte, zeigt sie als Mutter und Tochter, als Freundin, Mieterin und Patientin, als flüchtige Bekannte und treulose Ehefrau. Aus diesem Mosaik tritt auf magische Weise ein kühner Roman hervor, der wie nebenbei die Fragen nach Wahrnehmung und Wahrheit stellt.
Zu Beginn ist Xane Molin vierzehn Jahre alt und erlebt mit ihrer besten Freundin show more einen dramatischen Sommer. Am Ende ist sie Großmutter und versucht, für den Rest des Lebenswegs das Steuer noch einmal herumzureißen. Dazwischen nähern wir uns ihr aus verschiedensten Blickwinkeln: Da ist ihr Vermieter, der sie misstrauisch beobachtet und eigene Geheimnisse hat, da ist der Überlebende eines Bürgerkriegs, der sich in sie verliebt, da ist die ungestüme Jugendfreundin, die Xane nach Jahrzehnten plötzlich nicht mehr zu ertragen glaubt. show less
*Menschen sind Wesen, die mehr sein wollen, als sie sind
*In einer postmodernen Gesellschaft forscht Eva Menasse nach archaischen Mustern. Sie spürt den sieben Todsünden nach und findet Trägheit und Gefräßigkeit, Wollust und Hochmut, Zorn, Neid und Habgier in den Taten ihrer ganz und gar weltlichen Protagonisten. Wie schon in ihrem Debütroman »Vienna« erzählt sie mit der ihr eigenen Mischung aus Poesie und Komik Geschichten, die einem nicht mehr aus dem Kopf gehen.
Auf Gott können show more wir längst verzichten. Doch haben wir damit auch die Sünde abgeschafft? Anhand der alten Lehre von den sieben Todsünden widmet sich Eva Menasse den großen Themen der Literatur: Liebe und Hass, Schuld und Vergebung. Denn die Menschen verfehlen einander auch heute aus denselben Gründen wie vor Jahrhunderten.
Ein Familienvater ist zu träge, um gegen Töchter und Exfrau ein eigenes kleines Glück durchzusetzen. Ein junges Liebespaar vermeidet die Kompliziertheiten der Sexualität, indem es den einen zum Pfleger, die andere zur Kranken macht. Ein Mann verpasst sein ganzes Leben, weil er sich keine Schwäche leisten will. Und ein geschiedenes Paar bekämpft einander bis ans Grab des gemeinsamen Kindes.
Leidenschaftlich und liebevoll geht die Autorin mit ihren Figuren ins Gericht. Hinter den Fassaden, da, wo die Sünden sind, steckt schließlich der menschliche Kern.
Und so wie die einzelnen Todsünden einander berühren und ineinander übergehen, tun es auch diese Geschichten. Orte und Figuren tauchen auf und kehren wieder, Zusammenhänge erschließen sich quer durch die Kapitel – wie in »Vienna« erschafft Eva Menasse mit unverwechselbarem Witz und erzählerischer Rasanz ein großes Ganzes. show less
*In einer postmodernen Gesellschaft forscht Eva Menasse nach archaischen Mustern. Sie spürt den sieben Todsünden nach und findet Trägheit und Gefräßigkeit, Wollust und Hochmut, Zorn, Neid und Habgier in den Taten ihrer ganz und gar weltlichen Protagonisten. Wie schon in ihrem Debütroman »Vienna« erzählt sie mit der ihr eigenen Mischung aus Poesie und Komik Geschichten, die einem nicht mehr aus dem Kopf gehen.
Auf Gott können show more wir längst verzichten. Doch haben wir damit auch die Sünde abgeschafft? Anhand der alten Lehre von den sieben Todsünden widmet sich Eva Menasse den großen Themen der Literatur: Liebe und Hass, Schuld und Vergebung. Denn die Menschen verfehlen einander auch heute aus denselben Gründen wie vor Jahrhunderten.
Ein Familienvater ist zu träge, um gegen Töchter und Exfrau ein eigenes kleines Glück durchzusetzen. Ein junges Liebespaar vermeidet die Kompliziertheiten der Sexualität, indem es den einen zum Pfleger, die andere zur Kranken macht. Ein Mann verpasst sein ganzes Leben, weil er sich keine Schwäche leisten will. Und ein geschiedenes Paar bekämpft einander bis ans Grab des gemeinsamen Kindes.
Leidenschaftlich und liebevoll geht die Autorin mit ihren Figuren ins Gericht. Hinter den Fassaden, da, wo die Sünden sind, steckt schließlich der menschliche Kern.
Und so wie die einzelnen Todsünden einander berühren und ineinander übergehen, tun es auch diese Geschichten. Orte und Figuren tauchen auf und kehren wieder, Zusammenhänge erschließen sich quer durch die Kapitel – wie in »Vienna« erschafft Eva Menasse mit unverwechselbarem Witz und erzählerischer Rasanz ein großes Ganzes. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 20
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 582
- Popularity
- #43,089
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 17
- ISBNs
- 65
- Languages
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