Alphabet soup is a celebration of literary and culinary diversity, to be devoured on the page and the plate!

The successful intercultural theatre project “Wiener Wortstaetten” is celebrating its tenth birthday. Since 2005 it has hosted theatrical productions by writers from various countries speaking various languages and reflecting the diversity of the capital Vienna: Turkey, Russia, Iran, Bulgaria and states from the former Yugoslavia have all been represented. As well as enriching German-language literature with their stories, writing and performing for the ”Wiener Wortstaetten”, each writer also cooked unique soups, mixing ingredients from their old and new homes. Short stories and recipes by Ibrahim Amir, Susanne Ayoub, Ana Bilic, Seher Cakir, Yasmin Hafedh, Michal Hvorecky, Jérôme Junod, Ursula Knoll, Rhea, Krcmárová, Valerie Melichar, Barbi Markovic, Azar Mortazavi, Goran Novakovic, Dominic Oley, Ewald Palmetshofer, Thomas Perle, Semir Plivac, Julya Rabinowich, Andreas Sauter, Gerhild Steinbuch, Marianne Strauhs, Bernhard Studlar, Robert Woelfl

The incredible tale of an extremely chaste saint, his portrait and the painters Rubens and Van Dyck

Witty and inquisitive, Alois Brandstetter goes in search of his patron saint and namesake Aloysius. The journey takes him to Mantua in Italy at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The thoroughly chaste Aluigi, who died young, has just been beatified, and his mother is looking to have his portrait painted for the new church being built in his name. The job is offered to Rubens of all people, whose work celebrates the pleasures of the flesh, but he turns it down and recommends the boy wonder Van Dyck, nineteen and highly talented. Letters fly between Mantua and Amsterdam. Will Aluigi’s Portrait ever be painted? Perhaps not on canvas but certainly in the form of an enchanting historical fantasy created by Alois Brandstetter.

The ghost of freedom wanders the streets…

Baku, Azerbaijan, spring 2011: the city is in uproar, protests against the authoritarian regime are growing louder. In the midst of it are Ali and Nino, Frida and Che, two young couples fighting not only against state repression but for their love, for freedom and self-determination, for happiness and a life they can call their own. Yet Verena Mermer evokes more than just the political struggles and everyday life in one of the last dictatorships on Europe’s borders. Her wonderful debut also plays an enthralling game with its characters, with the times and places, the myths of revolution and love and lures us into the labyrinth of poetic invention.

Dammed if you celebrate, dammed if you don't

Love them or not, birthdays are unavoidable, not only ours but our uncles and aunts, parents and lovers, grandmas and grandpas, friends who don’t want to get older and children who can’t wait to. This book even considers people who flee to the ends of the earth (or the next bar) at the mere mention of a birthday party, as well as the chosen few with birthdays on 29 February, 1 May or New Year’s Eve or people already reborn a few times. Twenty-five contemporary authors have brought gifts: unusual, touching and unbelievable ‘birthday presents’. Reason enough to celebrate. With short stories by Polly Adler, Ela Angerer, Bettina Baláka, Ruth Cerha, Friedrich Dönhoff, Petra Hartlieb, Monika Held, Peter Henisch, Wolfgang Hermann, Margarita Kinstner, Elisabeth Klar, Edith Kneifl, Konrad Paul Liessmann, Heidi List, Klaus Nüchtern, Klaus Oppitz, Kurt Palm, Verena Petrasch, Eva Rossmann, Tex Rubinowitz, David Schalko, Susanne Scholl, Dirk Stermann, Cornelia Travnicek, Anna Weidenholzer and lyrics by the band Gustav.

Gernot Wolfgruber’s 1976 classic “Herrenjahre” (“His Own Master”) – back in print at last

Following his time as an apprentice Bruno Melzer’s hopes for his time as His Own Master are not fulfilled. The dream of independence soon proves to be a fragile utopia. He undergoes a painful disillusion process doing monotonous work on a factory conveyor belt, then loses his remaining vestiges of freedom as a one night stand makes him a father. But along with the story of the worker Bruno, this famous novel paints a broader picture of social conditions and attitudes at the time, and remains highly relevant today.

An amusing journey through the history of marriage, from the ancient world to the present

Marriages might be made in heaven but they are lived out here on earth – for some a floor lower… Even beforehand, when choosing a partner, those keen to marry are faced with a tricky decision: money or love? There are countless traps, which even royal marriage-hopefuls can fall into: Henry VIII of England fell victim to the Photoshop effect back in the sixteenth century when he requested portraits of suitable marriage candidates. After the ceremony is completed it’s often no easier: who turns out to wear the trousers? And rumours of a blissful two-fold union are a myth: one half turns out to come with a mother-in-law, the other can’t manage with just one woman. And the dictates of church and state follow the couple right into the bedroom. Till death us do part. But help is at hand.

From the Keeping Uncalm series, in co-operation with the Akademie Graz

Theweleit describes the laughter of killers using a selection of case studies, including German soldiers in British prisoner of war camps during WWII, who are said to have told each other about the atrocities they had committed with considerable mirth. The laughter masks another aspect of killing for pleasure however; the cold rationality with which murderers speak when they justify their acts in public. Anders Breivik’s defence in court starts to sound like a statistical analysis of Norwegian immigration figures, for instance. Theweleit’s essay reveals the language of justification as a foil for sadism, because, according to the author’s provocative argument, anything can be ‘justified’; we should avoid believing a word of it.

April in Stein tells of life and survival in prison, forced labour and political resistance, but above all the mass murder in Krems for the first time.

During the Nazi tyranny, the prison in Krems-Stein was the largest in the "Ostmark" or ‘Eastern March’; the Nazi’s name for Austria. This was where dissidents were imprisoned – communists and "saboteurs", resisters from Austria and Eastern Europe. On April 6 1945, the prison governor opens the gates of the prison when faced by the advancing Red Army, but the SS, SA and local people hunt and kill hundreds of political prisoners in an unprecedented massacre. Some manage to escape, some survive by hiding in cellars, and their reports form the basis of Robert Streibel’s polyphonic panorama.

From the series "Keeping Uncalm" in cooperation with the Academy Graz and DIE PRESSE

Discussions about the threat of privacy from phone hacking scandals and computer-aided searches are commonplace. Anna Kim draws a line from the development of the historic repeal of privacy in interrogation to the current use of digital technologies for government encroachment. In interrogation, the individual was always subdued for the arbitrary good of the public. Anna Kim tells the outrageous interrogation techniques and strategies from ancient history leading up to the dictatorships of modern times, where it was perfected through excessive tailing and show trials. The result is an unusual genealogy of surveillance as a publicly sanctioned violence.

Gesa Olkusz effortlessly and stylishly conjures the past into the present and finds the magic in the everyday.

Plagued by thoughts, Filbert wanders through Berlin. One snowy night he meets Mae, and their love seems easy and absolute. Filbert is still not at peace; the legends of his grandfather, who died a hero as a resistance fighter in the forests of Eastern Europe, won’t leave him. But then Aureliusz appears, and he’s not as harmless as he looks: he may just look like a boy in a holey jumper, but he has the ability to travel through time in his search for the truth. But it’s not that easy to find it when everyone has their own story to tell and Filbert really just wants to have Mae back.