Merciless as the twentieth century and uplifting as only great literature can be

Born in Romania between the wars, raised in poverty and washed up in Austria by the turmoil of war, Mrs Berta’s life was one of humiliation, pain and misery. Now in an old people’s home, she describes these violent events to the narrator. He in turn lives in the Pension Adler, with various tattooed, one-armed guests, as well as kindly Swedish women. In the home, with its shifty inmates and carers, he begins to feel comfortable, and takes detailed notes of Mrs Berta’s story. Max Blaeulich’s novel illuminates every shade of despair there is. Yet existential loneliness has seldom been described with such assured language and unsparing precision since Kafka.

Klaus Oppitz and the Round Table Fleeing from it all!

Austria in the not too distant future: right-wing populist Michael Hichl has just begun his third term as prime minister; the country is not only free of foreigners, it is in recession, isolated internationally and crippled by inflation and unemployment. In search of a brighter future, the Putschek family emigrate to what is now one of the richest EU countries, Turkey. On their eventful journey, the Putscheks meet Burgenland racketeers, authentic Arian Hungarians, shady people-traffickers, and politically persecuted Carinthians, finally landing in an Istanbul refugee centre. It is very hard to integrate, however, when a member of the family is slowly losing their mind. The Round Table consists of Klaus Oppitz, Rudi Roubinek, Mike Bernard and Gerald Fleischhacker. The other knights of the Round Table assisted the creation of Emigration Day with wordplay, tips and feedback. The four have pooled their diverse talents and with their combined strength have become leading writers on the Austrian comedy scene.

Published for the first time unabridged, including original documents, this is the record Karl Ignaz Hennetmair made of his daily conversations and encounters with Thomas Bernhard. ------------------------------------------------------- “Thomas is not earnest or bitter; when he whinges about publishers it’s cheerful and witty. I say, ‘publishers like to have their authors on a string, like puppeteers with their puppets. Every publisher has a handful of strings, and as soon as they tug on one, an author appears. But when they pull your string it jams and nothing moves. They just don’t get it.’ Thomas says he will travel to the prize-giving via Frankfurt. There he intends to walk through his publisher’s offices saying, ‘have a good look; this is what a writer looks like [in dialect]. You know, I talk mostly in dialect there,’ he says. ‘I’m pretty brutal. When the secretary asks me to wait, I say something unintelligible. And then the door is opened, some young writer is shunted aside, and I can get straight to Unseld.’”

In 1972 the estate agent Karl Ignaz Hennetmair, a friend and neighbour of Thomas Bernhard, decided to keep a diary of the events and conversations involving Bernhard that year, creating a document of incalculable value to Thomas Bernhard fans. His enemies would have found much to enjoy too, as the manuscript sometimes shows the master in a dark light – but where are the Bernhard detractors today? Thomas Bernhard had understandable difficulties with the outside world; initially it took no notice of him, but as his reputation grew it began to beleaguer him, coming too close for comfort. Sometimes it tended to present him – a man interested solely in his literature –simply as stupid. To counteract all that, he had Hennetmair, who found him his property, his houses and woods, negotiating the deals at favourable prices, but also mediated between the writer and the outside world on an everyday level. Hennetmair dealt with everything from broken window frames to mental garbage, acting as dumping ground and recycling facility. He always kept unwanted visitors away from Bernhard, but equally received him into his own family circle. There they chatted, joked and put the world to rights. Later Hennetmair retreated to his study to write it all down in his diary, which we can now satisfy our curiosity by reading.

The unbelievable story of partisan twin sisters Kara and Jara

Alek Popov's poignant political satire about the heroic partisans of World War II will tickle and delight all fans of black humor. In the forests of Bulgaria, the attractive twin sisters Kara and Jara join a group of partisans in their fight against fascism. Because of their bourgeois background, they are quickly accused of being traitors. Separated on the run, they do not meet again until several years later – but in the meantime, Jara has changed sides… Sharp-tongued and bold, Popov mixes an explosive cocktail of action-packed fights, broken utopias and tragi-comic heroes. Full of suspense, wit and insanity, his novel makes sure that – at least ideologically – nothing stays in place. Alek Popov was born in 1966, degree in Bulgarian philology, lives and works in Sofia. In total he has published six story collections and one novel. His stories and his novel "Mission: London" have been translated into several languages, among others: English, French and Hungarian.

When idyllic landscapes harbor dark secrets

The official victims of the 20th century are commemorated in memorials. But how do we remember the thousands of nameless, secretly buried victims – Jews, Roma, anti-communists or partisans? How do we in Central Europe live in landscapes tainted by innumerable hushed up massacres: from Rechnitz in Burgenland to Kocevski Rog in Slovenia and Kurapaty near Minsk? Martin Pollack relentlessly, yet diligently draws a new, more honest map of our continent. It is a map in which memory and honest location replace shameful secrets and anonymous graves.

Georg runs – for his happiness, his mind, his life.

Apprentice Georg Rohrs isn't the sharpest tool in the box. But he has a dream: he wants to be the elevator boy in a seaside hotel, wants to escape on the night train with his first love Marlies and escape the confinement of his life at home. When Georg happens upon a dead body and accidentally steals his boss's suitcase full of dirty cash, his life begins to unravel: within a single weekend Georg loses his job, his apartment, his parents, his friends, his money, his love and maybe a piece of his sanity – and yet, at the end of this neck-breaking tour-de-force, an unknown sense of freedom awaits him... Martin Lechner's fast-paced debut novel is a whirlwind adventure where provincial comedy meets literary genius. Nominated for the German Book Prize 2014 (Longlist)

An encounter between two women, two cultures, to fates that could not be anymore different.

Emma, senior citizen in Vienna, lives in a world where things aren't like they used to be: her new Turkish daughter-in-law is pregnant, her granddaughter Luzie wears jeans that are way too tight and her ex-husband Georg is killed by a well-deserved stroke. Sarema is from Grozny. She is only alive thanks to her desperate courage: the Chechen War has left her with nothing, but she and her son Shamil manage to escape to Austria with the help of human smugglers. Sarema is seeking asylum and Emma needs help at home after an accident. Their paths cross, their lives connect – how far will Emma go to help Sarema?

Criminally fun for western fans, opera aficionados, turkey hunters and more!

A composer of operas as a western hero? Mozart's librettist as a mob boss? A native American as a balloon pilot? Kurt Palm creates an enthralling mix of outrageous madness and historical detail in his story about the Wild West. Bored of society, Gioachino Rossini accepts an outlandish challenge. His uncle has left him a saloon and a piece of farmland in Missouri and neither a stormy passage over the Atlantic, nor the hardships of 1700 kilometers of travel can deter our hero. Once Indian Kamalesh, Ringgold, the escaped slave and Native American Big Thunder join his quest, Rossini and his whirlwind crew cannot be stopped!

Memoir of an exceptional artist.

A journalist asks a renowned artist to tell him her life story for a series in his newspaper. Hesitant at first, she slowly learns to trust the journalist during his daily visits and begins to talk: about her two marriages, her experiences at the theater, her journey to become a writer and about the people who had the greatest influence on her life. About the ups and downs of life as a woman in the public eye. Erika Pluhar has written a new kind of autobiography, settled somewhere between fact and fiction. A personal, touching and fascinating life story.

Ein humoristischer Kriminalfall

In the summer of 2012, a suggestion box was stolen from the Don-Bosco-Church in Klagenfurt. Did the thief confuse the suggestion box with the offertory box even though it had "Tell us what you think! Suggestions, requests, complaints" written on it? Or was the person who took it fed up with people being fed up with church and state? Or had the thief grown tired of the constant moaning and groaning and ranting and raging wearing out suggestion boxes all over? Or was it some kind of harmony-freak who needed his fix of fixing things? Alois Brandstetter sheds light on this bizarre case. His criminalistic and detective investigation is poetically funny and reveals a number of strange coincidences and clues. An exquisitely witty read!