Ingrid Zebinger-Jacobi
Author Ingrid Zebinger-Jacobi & Franz Zebinger (Piano) Present an Afternoon of Literature and Music
Author Ingrid Zebinger-Jacobi will present her debut novel Als Mutter nicht hier war (When Mother Wasn’t Here), published by Edition Keiper on 1 September 2026. The reading will be accompanied by musical performances by Franz Zebinger on the piano.
One July afternoon, a mother leaves, and her twelve-year-old daughter is left behind in a place where she does not want to be: on the Croatian coast, staying with a family she does not know, surrounded by a language she cannot understand. Her senses become acutely heightened. She notices smells, glances, gestures, and moods with extraordinary intensity. The unspoken tensions between the adults become increasingly tangible. As the family’s situation spirals towards crisis, the girl waits for her mother to call, to return, to take her home.
Memory gradually gives way to reflection. Looking back years later, the first-person narrator revisits the summer in which she was abruptly torn from childhood. She asks what really happened then—and what began to change within herself.
A finely crafted literary debut, the novel explores estrangement, abandonment, and the fragile transition from childhood to adolescence. It is a deeply empathetic, sensuous, and poetically powerful work.
About the Author
Ingrid Zebinger-Jacobi was born in Graz, Austria, in 1978. She studied Music and English Literature, specialising in literary studies, and worked as a translator. Her short fiction has appeared in literary journals including Wespennest and Lichtungen, as well as on Austrian public radio. Her previous collections of stories—Barfuß geht die Zeit (2018), Ich lege mein Herz (2019), and Ein Boot weit draußen (2025)—were all published by Edition Keiper. She lives and writes in Vienna.
Franz Zebinger
Born on 29 April 1946 in St. Peter am Ottersbach, Austria, Franz Zebinger is a pianist, harpsichordist, organist, composer, and educator. He studied church music, organ, harpsichord, classical archaeology, and Romance languages at the University of Graz, earning his concert diploma in organ in 1971 and a doctorate in 1982. From 1977 to 2003, he taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and at the Institute in Oberschützen.
Since 2000, Zebinger has served as President of the Association of Composers and Performers of Burgenland (KIBu). For many years he performed internationally as a harpsichordist and organist, with a particular focus on early music. From the mid-1980s onwards, composition became the centre of his artistic work. His music has been performed in more than twenty countries across Europe and beyond. As President of KIBu, he has organised numerous concerts, workshops, and symposia in Vienna, Burgenland, and Styria, with a particular emphasis on the musical traditions of Burgenland’s ethnic communities.