Erich Hackl

Varma och kalla bad utspelas i ett land som besväras av det förflutna. Av det Habsburgska riket, kejsardömet mitt i Europa, återstår det betydligt mindre Österrike. Namnen på de författare som kommer till tals vittnar dels om ett slaviskt, dels om ett tyskt eller tyskjudiskt ursprung, även om alla skriver på tyska. I Varma och kalla bad medverkar flera generationer författare som berättar om sina personliga upplevelser av kriget och nazismen, men här skildras också samtiden. Alltifrån valutareformer till hembygds-berättelser, kvinnlig frigörelse och lyriska kärleksförklaringar gör antologin till ett både roande och tankeväckande nedslag i dagens österrikiska samhälle och litteratur.

Stirring, poignant stories humanize great historical tragedies with interviews and accounts of individuals affected by the clashes of communism and fascism.“Powerful inquiries spurred by photos—history made flesh, the untold lives of the mostly forgotten.”—Kirkus Reviews“A missionary voice of human dignity.”—World Literature TodayErich Hackl, 2017 recipient of the internationally-recognized Human Rights Award of Upper Austria and winner of multiple literature prizes, brings three little-known and inspiring biographies to light: young Gisela Tschofenig’s hidden life in the Austrian resistance and her fate; a fragmented interview with Wilhelm Brasse, the Polish political prisoner who photographed Auschwitz inmates and saved evidence of Mengele’s horrific crimes; and the multi-generational story of the Klagsbrunns, who fled Nazism in Vienna only to find another kind of terror in the fascist dictatorship of 1950s Brazil.

"Erich Hackl's subjects are all actual events, fates and biographies. Often with considerable research and effort, he digs deep into the histories of people whose destiny very often have to do with Nazism and / or with Judaism. In his new collection of short [non-fiction] stories Three tearless histories, two of which are already published in Austria in newspapers and anthologies, Hackl tells of Jewish people and their destinies. [...] These stories get under one's skin." - Winfried Stanzick, Top Ten Review for Bucher.de, July 9, 2015 "Highly recommended, ...a haunting book." - Samuel Moser Neue Zurcher Zeitung, September 13, 2014 "The books of Erich Hackl have now been translated into 25 languages. As a chronicler, he reminds us of the fate of people who were arrested for racial reasons or because of their political convictions, tortured and murdered. Hackl reconstructs the biographies of those who have been erased from history. [...] He takes care to strive for historical accuracy." - Michael Opitz, Deutschlandradio Kultur With characteristic literary reflection, the latest book by award-winning Austrian author Erich Hackl humanizes three great, but little known, historical tragedies. "Tschofenig: The Name Behind the Street" recounts the improbable wedding of resistance fighter Gisela Tschofenig (1917-1945) while she was a prisoner in Dachau; "The Photographer of Auschwitz" offers a fragmented biography of Wilhelm Brasse (1917-2012), who photographed Auschwitz inmates and saved evidence of Mengele's terrible crimes; and "The Klagsbrunn Family" traces the multi-generational story of the Klagsbrunns who, fearing the rise of Nazism in Vienna, fled to Brazil where their grandson was arrested and tortured under that country's fascist dictatorship.