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Droschl dedicates itself exclusively and continuously to contemporary literature, not only German-language literature, but also to distinctive authors from different language areas.

Of the many writing styles, the tradition of the rebellious, the formal innovators and tradition-breakers particularly shaped the publishing house in the early years. Gradually, the publishing house’s profile expanded and opened up, and to this day, special attention is paid to language as well as innovative and ingenious ways of telling stories.

With the Droschl books, we want to appeal to curious readers who want to discover something, word-fixated readers whose great love belongs to language, to languages, to the countless different ways of speaking.

The first literary books – by authors such as Michael Donhauser, Antonio Fian, Eleonore Frey, Ingram Hartinger or Peter Waterhouse – consistently won the attention of critics, literary prizes and awards followed. Werner Schwab’s unstoppable career began in 1992 with the plays in his debut volume Fäkaliendramen.

The risk-taking publishing of first publications continues to this day. Over the years, many debuts have appeared, e.g. by Bettina Balàka, Wolfgang Denkel, Christoph Dolgan, Regina Dürig, Tomer Gardi, Friederike Gösweiner, Stephan Groetzner, Klaus Händl, Bettina Hartz, Ingeborg Horn, Ally Klein, Anna Kim, Eva Maria Leuenberger, Karoline Therese Marth, Lydia Mischkulnig, Rosa Pock, Almut Tina Schmidt, Stefan Schmitzer, Sabine Schönfellner, Monique Schwitter, Max Sessner, Thomas Stangl, Bernhard Strobel, Andreas Unterweger and Andrea Winkler.

 

Alongside the younger authors are the already recognized older ones, some of whom are represented in the Droschl program with editions of their works, authors whose importance has been confirmed by critics, literary scholars, and prize-givers: Wolfgang Bauer, Elfriede Gerstl, Anselm Glück, Reinhard P. Gruber, Mela Hartwig, Ilse Helbich, Bodo Hell, Klaus Hoffer, Alfred Kolleritsch, Wilhelm Muster, Reinhard Priessnitz, and Ilma Rakusa.

But Droschl also publishes books by authors of the middle generation with great success, such as titles by Susanne Gregor, Iris Hanika, Thomas Jonigk, Gertraud Klemm, Olga Martynova, and Carolina Schutti.

A second focus in the Droschl program has been translations almost from the beginning. In 1986, the first translated title appeared (Giulia Niccolai’s Poems Frisbees); since then, we have published essential modern classics such as Paul Bowles, Basil Bunting, Michel Butor, Roger Caillois, Robert Creeley, Julien Gracq, Michel Leiris, Henri Michaux, Victor Segalen, or the two Moroccans Larbi Layachi and Mohammed Mrabet. The literatures of our eastern neighbors have always been important to us, and the program includes titles by Georgi Gospodinov, Bohumila Grögerová and Josef Hiršal, Ewa Lipska, Tadeusz Różewicz, Tomaž Šalamun and Irena Vrkljan.

Many authors were introduced to the German-speaking public for the first time with their Droschl books, e.g. César Aira, Lydia Davis, László Garaczi, Rada Ivekovic, Thøger Jensen, Marina Palej, Oksana Sabuschko, Ferenc Szijj, Tor Ulven, Maja Vidmar, Tobias Wolff, Andrea Zanzotto and the Korean Yisang. In addition, young debuts in the field of translation, such as Tine Høeg and Fen Verstappen, are to be discovered and presented to the readers.

In 2020, the publishing house launched the MIND GAMES series. For this, we invite bright minds to approach a concrete word in thought. It is truly astonishing how differently the authors deal with a concept in their texts and artfully circle around it. Each author’s own literary style is just as characteristic of the respective volume. Contributors so far: Ilse Helbich, Felicitas Hoppe, Paul Jandl, Esther Kinsky, Michael Köhlmeier, Konrad Paul Liessmann, Eva Menasse, Ilma Rakusa, Clemens J. Setz, Marlene Streeruwitz, Lotte Tobisch, Ilija Trojanow and David Wagner.

Another focus is the ESSAY series, which presents the literary essay in its various manifestations as an art form in small and handy volumes. The first volume appeared in 1991. Texts by such outstanding and distinctive authors as Patrick Deville, Franzobel, Barbara Frischmuth, William Gass, Boris Groys, William Hazlitt, Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs, Felix Philipp Ingold, Birgit Kempker, Sebastian Kiefer, Brigitte Kronauer, Miodrag Pavlović, Peter Rosei, Kathrin Röggla, Jesper Svenbro, Yoko Tawada, Miguel de Unamuno, Paul Wühr, and others have appeared here.

In 1992, Heimrad Bäcker’s publishing house edition neue texte was taken over. In it, uncompromising drafts of a new kind of literature were collected in a consistent program: a publishing program that further developed the strands of modernism determined equally by rigorous linguistic reflection and strict reference to material, thus enabling a continuous bridge between the »older« authors of, for example, the Wiener Gruppe and subsequent generations – a deserving forum for »experimental« writers critical of language such as Franz Josef Czernin, Elfriede Czurda, Andreas Okopenko, Reinhard Priessnitz, Gerhard Rühm, Ferdinand Schmatz, Dominik Steiger and Hansjörg Zauner.

Since 2018, Droschl, in cooperation with the Institute for German Studies at the University of Graz and the Literaturhaus Graz, has published an annual volume on the ART OF WRITING. Authors, mostly not from the field of fiction, reflect on their own writing. So far, books by Konrad Paul Liessmann, Kathrin Passig, Klaus Reichert, Kathrin Röggla and Daniela Strigl have been published.

 

 

This program – which the National Library in Vienna also honored with the purchase of the archives of the first two decades of publishing – was led for the first 25 years by Maximilian Droschl, and with the same commitment his daughter Annette Knoch has led the fortunes of the publishing house since May 2003, accompanied in the editorial office until 2017 by Rainer Götz, since then by Christopher Heil.

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