Rosemarie Poiarkov

born 1974 in Baden bei Wien, studied Philosophy, German Studies, and Political Science in Vienna, where she lives today. After working as a journalist and coach for German as a Foreign Language, she primarily works as an author today. Her work includes prose, drama, and audio plays as well as dramaturgy for theater productions. She was a fellow at LCB Berlin in 2001 and has published a collection of short stories “Eine CD lang” (2001) as well as the story “Wer, wenn nicht wir?” (2007). For her debut novel “Aussichten sind überschätzt”, she received a project grant from bmukk – the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture - and was awarded a grant by Literar-Mechana.

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Rosemarie Poiarkov - Overrated views

At the flea market Luise discovers an old wax cylinder, used to record sound more than a century ago. The label reveals it was recorded in 1903, in Vienna’s second district, where Luise happens to live. What does the voice from the past have to say? How well do we listen and what are we willing to hear? The characters in Poiarkov’s immersive debut novel deal with these questions as they face their own issues: Luise’s boyfriend Emil, a sound archivist who loves recording cracking ice and rumbling streets; Luise’s friend Milan who passionately yearns for beautiful Zorica from Novi Sad; her other friend Julia who must face her alcoholic mother; and Josef Grasl, Luise’s father, who roams the streets in search of ghosts from the past.

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