Literature-Matinée: IN MEMORIAM BARBARA FRISCHMUTH.

Barbara Frischmuth & Juan Carlos Sungurlian

Literature & Music: The great Austrian author Barbara Frischmuth has read 20 times with us. On 30. of March of this year, she died. She has been a contributor to our cultural program since the beginning. In gratitude, Irmi Horn, for whom she even wrote the monologue of Lily’s creation, will represent her. Musically accompanied by Juan Carlos Sungurlian (Oud).

Barbara & Juan Carlos

THE BEAUTY OF THE DAY AND NIGHT’S FLY, Residenzverlag 10.02.2025 contains 4 stories.

These small masterpieces of fantasy are at the same time a plea against the exploitation of nature by man.

Blue iridescent beetles, furry moths, brave locusts and flickering dragonflies are the heroes of Barbara Frischmuth’s new stories. But if we take a closer look, the author is not only concerned with carefully observed insects: it is about finely drawn symbioses of man and nature, about rare hybrids between girls and beetles, about talking dragonflies or about what we can learn from the cunning grasshoppers. With loving humor, these stories show us how much we humans are part of nature. Because, the gardener and poet Barbara Frischmuth never tires of emphasizing: Only in a coexistence with nature, which is characterized by respect and mindfulness, do we all have a chance of survival.

The author is deeply rooted in her home town, where she has been living again for over two decades. Her literary garden books tell us that she is also closely connected with nature. Her new book “NATURE and the Attempts to Approach it with Language” is different. Nature and culture cannot be separated from each other. They constantly intertwine, whether visibly or invisibly, occasionally without harmonising. Since time immemorial, man has tried to tame nature, to subdue it. The more spectacularly he succeeds, the less he thinks about how dependent he still is on it. This is most evident in the language we use to try to name and describe nature, whether narrative, poetic, factual or scientific. In her essay, Barbara Frischmuth attempts to show how nature is spoken of in everyday life, literature, culture and science. To underestimate nature would be life-threatening. To appreciate it, even to love it, is a humane realisation. Residenzverlag, 2021

“Your Shadow Dances in the Kitchen”. Aufbau-Verlag 2021, 224 pages also published 2021.

The dexterous musician  will play his oud between the texts and inspire the breadth of thought that Barbara Frischmuth wisely, cheerfully and with humour calls for in her texts, which deal with people’s living conditions.