Ingeborg Bachmann

The fraught and generative relationship between two postwar literary giants--revealed through a series of letters published for the first time in English. Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) stands among the most vital voices of postwar German literature--an acclaimed poet and prose writer who also reshaped radio drama and opera. In 1958, a letter of admiration from the Swiss novelist Max Frisch (1911-1991), written after hearing Bachmann's radio play The Good God of Manhattan, led to a meeting in Paris and the beginning of an intense, volatile love affair that would forever leave a mark on both their lives and work. Presented here for the first time in English, 299 letters written between 1958 and 1973 trace the arc of that relationship: long separations, the strain of two writers attempting to share a life, creative rivalry, sexual jealousy, and gendered tensions sharpened by a fifteen-year age gap. The correspondence ranges from everyday logistics to raw psychological insight, from passion and longing to bitterness, silence, and regret. The later letters, written as Bachmann's health declined, expand to include friends, relatives, and key literary figures. First published in German in 2022, this correspondence overturned long-held myths about the two writers, revealing mutual influence, negotiated freedom, and a struggle to reconcile incompatible needs. Intimate and revelatory, these letters illuminate the fragile intersection of love, power, and creativity.

Where does fascism begin? It doesn’t begin with the first bombs that were dropped. It begins in relationships between people. Fascism lies at the root of the relationship between a man and a woman…. Ingeborg Bachmann’s short fiction — too long underread in English — arrives here in full force: a feminist masterpiece, razor-sharp and as urgent as a confession. This major collection draws together all the stories Bachmann wrote over her lifetime, many appearing in English for the first time. These are intensely charged tales of power and submission, obsession and shame, which play out in cliff-side hotels, red-lit bars and court trials in Vienna, Rome and Paris. Bachmann follows lonely lovers through their stifled quarrels and private cruelties, where intimacy becomes a prison, language a weapon, and guilt the very air women breathe. As they struggle to make room for their lives within the narrowing confines of 1950s and 60s society, Bachmann exposes the legacy of fascism, lurking so close to the surface. An undisputed giant of German-language literature, Bachmann’s ‘vision is so original that the effect is like having a new letter of the alphabet’ (Guardian).

"En plats för tillfälligheter" är Ingeborg Bachmanns skildring av Västberlin från 1964. I en blandning av essäistik, lyrik och prosa avbildas staden som brytningspunkten mellan historiens konsekvenser och Bachmanns inre misär. "En plats för tillfälligheter" är ett porträtt av staden i spillror.

I lägenheten på Ungargasse i Wien lever en berömd och efterfrågad kvinnlig författare tillsammans med den mystiske Malina. Snett över gatan bor hennes svårtillgänglige älskare Ivan. Ingeborg Bachmann skildrar med sin återhållna, precisa berättarstil besatthet, förtryck och den ångestridnes oförmögna tillstånd. "Malina" behandlar teman som makt, självdestruktivitet, minne och skuld.

Written when Ingeborg Bachmann was only eighteen, The Honditsch Cross, her second-longest completed work of prose, is a historical novella set during the final days of the Napoleonic occupation of Austria in 1813. A young theology student, returning from Vienna to his family home in Carinthia, finds the invading troops stationed there, led by a despotic officer, who has been exploiting and terrorizing his family and friends. He is immediately thrown into the center of the conflict, torn between defending his homeland, the pull of physical desire, and the pursuit of his theological studies... In this gripping work, Bachmann begins to explore themes that will pre-occupy her for the rest of her writing career: complex notions of nationality and patriotism, the roles and rights of women in patriarchal societies, the meaningless destruction of war and its aftermath, and the bitter moments of disillusionment that lead to intellectual maturity

The first English translation of the essays, lectures, and other critical writings of the celebrated Austrian poet, novelist, and public intellectual, one of the most influential postwar writers in German. The Austrian Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) is one of the most important postwar writers in German. Her work is enmeshed with the intellectual and cultural developments of the period: she was influenced by European modernism in the early 1950s, experienced the sweeping changes of the 60s, and worked until her death in 1973 on her celebrated and sprawling "Todesarten" (Ways of Death) project, on the decades following National Socialism. Her poetry and prose confront what she called "the sickness of our time": the subtle connection between patriarchal society, catastrophic history in the form of National Socialism, and the subjugation of the Other. Even during her lifetime, Bachmann achieved a prominent position in postwar German-language literature. Interest in her literary output increased sharply in the early 1980s with the publication of the first edition of her works, and has been growing steadily ever since. Bachmann's impact on German literature is comparable to that of Virginia Woolf on English literature. Just as an appreciation of Woolf's poetic oeuvre, and that of other women writers, is impossible without reference to "A Room of One's Own," the critical writings of Bachmann enhance our awareness of not only her own works, but also those of many other writers, philosophers, and artists. As the only translation of Bachmann's essays, lectures, speeches, and theoretical texts into English, The Critical Writings will be a valuable tool for students of Comparative Literature and German literature and cultural studies.

Darkness Spoken is the most complete volume of Ingeborg Bachmann’s poetry in English and German. Considered one of the premiere poets of her generation, Bachmann’s various awards include the Georg Büchner Prize, the Berlin Critics Prize, the Bremen Award, and the Austrian State Prize for literature. Darkness Spoken collects her two celebrated books of poetry, as well as the early and late poems not collected in book form. First published by Zephyr Press in 2006, the volume also contains 129 poems released from Bachmann’s archives that had never been translated before. Twenty-five of them also appeared in German for the first time. Continued research by Peter Fikins on Bachmann’s writing since 2006 as well as his current work on Bachmann’s biography (forthcoming in 2026 from Yale University Press), has drawn him even closer to Bachmann’s poems and deepened his understanding of their context and meaning. For this second revised edition, roughly a quarter of the poems have benefitted from revisions in word choice for the purposes of greater clarity, better syntax or rhythm, or in a few instances, corrections in punctuation and of interpretive errors. Eight poems from Bachmann's youth have also been added that did not appear in the first edition. A few lacunae in the German have also been corrected, allowing this volume to remain the most complete edition of Bachmann’s poetry.

U zbirtsi predstavleno sim opovidan, scho nalezhat do najvagomishikh tekstiv povojennoji nimetskomovnoji literaturi. Navit u zhorstokomu, poglinutomu nasilljam sviti je mistse dlja vidnajdennja pristanku. Majzhe u vsikh tvorakh jdetsja pro kokhannja mizh cholovikom i zhinkoju. Avtorka porushuje vichni temi zhittja ta smerti u riznikh, chasom neperedbachenikh obrazakh i formakh ("Ale zh ja zhivu! Zhivu! V tsomu nemaje sumnivu", - kazhe golovnij geroj opovidannja "Tridtsjatij rik"). Ingeborg Bakhman reabilituje pam'jat svojeji neodnoznachnoji epokhi - nablizhaje do vnutrishnogo svitu ljudini zagublenoji i vidnajdenoji. PerekladachVolodimir Kam'janets