Buchcovef

Der langangehaltene Atem (The Long-Drawn Breath)

Novel
2000
Hardcover , 21 x 13 cm
144 pages
€ 19.00

Author

A book about love and life, narrated at an extraordinary location.

Dead, stuffed animals fascinate the narrator, a painter who has received a commission from an unknown client to draw some of the exhibits in the natural history museum in Vienna. While wandering from room to room she muses about her last lover – the latest in a long line of failed relationships. The novel consists of her experiences in the museum, chats with her gay friend and her best woman-friend, the transsexual Venezuela, as well as letters, phone-calls and e-mail-exchanges with her patron. Critics have already started to compare Bettina Balàka with the leading Austrian writers, particularly Ingeborg Bachmann.

Presse

»A poetic, densely written, highly rewarding first novel … a remarkable debut indeed.« (New Books in German)

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