READING: HOT OFF THE PRESS

Unfortunately, we had to cancel the event this past summer. Now we’re making up for it! Fresh-off-the-press avant-garde literature from Vienna (with Bosnian, Polish, and Ebensee roots) that oscillates between poetry and prose. Highly political and abstractly aesthetic text collages, surrealistic intensity, curated prose, and lyrical local color:

Manuela Tomić (“Franček,” Wieser Verlag 2026), Grzegorz Kielawski (“I SEE MANY SHADOWS,” edition zzoo 2026), Max Ulrich (“schwindel im funkenschlag,” edition zzoo 2025) and Rudolf Stueger (“Alles in Ordnung,” Kētos 2026) will present their latest book releases at the cinema. Literature with the potential to take over the dance floor and/or plenary halls.

Manuela Tomić reads from her new debut novel “Franček,” published by Wieser Verlag. It lyrically intertwines Bosnian family traumas with a woman’s destructive fury.
“Franček,” Manuela Tomić’s debut novel, reads like a fabulous fever dream in a surrealist style, marked by surprising twists. In this seemingly self-contained world, major taboos are explored within a confined space.

Grzegorz Kielawski: The text condenses and collages the verbatim transcripts of parliamentary investigative committees: “concerning the alleged venality of the turquoise-blue federal government” and “concerning the clarification of corruption allegations against ÖVP government members.” 2 The text is a literary document of the protocols shaping mainstream culture. The focus is on the language of the witnesses from politics, administration, and business. Embedded in a loose narrative that objectively revolves around the abstractly relevant allegations and evidence, quotations and paraphrases come together to form a psychological profile of dignitaries and high-achievers. Their essence extends beyond Austria’s borders.

Max Ulrich ’s debut, *schwindel im funkenschlag*, adds to every bookshelf the voice of a lyrical “I” from the younger generation of authors, a voice that resonates unmistakably with the spirit of the times.

Rudolf Stueger: Alles in Ordnung: An Alphabetical Painting (Kētos Verlag, Vienna and Prague, 2026) “All language is, in the end, eerie poetry,” writes Rudolf Stueger in his experimental “alphabetical painting,” where everything happens simultaneously: The author has interwoven the individual sentences of three different narratives, arranged them alphabetically while adhering to certain additional rules, and then mechanically shortened and standardized them according to yet other rules. The result is a novel whose plot is not revealed chronologically but must be pieced together bit by bit, like a detective story. It is a loving parody of our times, a response to AI-generated