Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Night of culture

Austrian and Swiss authors liven up ‘Long Night of Literature'. It was the perfect setting for a night of literature. People sat around an open air theatre, under a starry night sky, listening to the prose, poetry and conversation taking place on stage.

Austrian author Peter Rosei and Swiss poet Raphael Urweider in their first visit to Hyderabad enthralled the audience with readings of their works. Peter, who was the recipient of the Franz Kafka award in 1993 and has about a dozen works, sweeping different genres including a screenplay of his work Wer war Edgar Allen, to his name, read an excerpt from his novel, Metropolis Vienna, that deals with post-war Vienna. This book has recently been translated into Hindi.

Peter was born in Vienna soon after the war and remembers a childhood surrounded by adults who would relive the horrors of war. He says, “Our society was a traumatised one.” He stresses his book is not historic but he tries to re- create the ideas, thoughts and feelings of a post-war society. When in Delhi, Peter found that the book found particular significance with Indians who had dealt with a similar situation post-partition.

Full report here Hindu

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