Sylvia Petter

A collection of well-travelled short fiction, flash Fiction and essays set in Europe and Australia. The short stories take you for an eclectic tour around Europe in 'Viennese Blood', 'The Ferris Wheel', 'Apple of Paradise'; to and from Australia with 'Back Burning', 'Heatwave', 'The Colour of Haze'; crossing cultures in 'The Boy from Bul', 'Matroshki'; and shifting between generations with 'Eyes to See' and 'Western Rerun'.Also included are flash fictions that show "less is more". Finally, two essays, published in World Literature Today, written by the author while she was based in Vienna.

"Winds of Change" handelt davon, wie gewöhnli- che Menschen auf politische Veränderung reagie- ren und damit zurechtkommen. Die Geschichte spielt in der ostdeutschen Stadt Chemnitz und folgt dem Leben von Dieter S., einem Stasi-Mitar- beiter, und Kai T., jenem Mann, den er während des DDR-Regimes ausspioniert. Beide stehen loyal zur DDR, wurde sie doch als Bollwerk gegen den Faschismus gegründet."Wen können wir lieben? Wem vertrauen? In einer kühnen Neuinterpretation der Gattung Flash Fiction komprimiert Sylvia Petter ein ganzes Epos auf kleinstem Raum. Es ist eine packende, eindringliche und poetische Schilderung histori- scher Ereignisse, voll von Geheimnissen, Aufleh- nung, Revolution, Befreiung und dem Wind politi- scher Veränderung, den wir alle spüren."Nancy Stohlman, Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction

Winds of Change is the story of how ordinary people react and adapt to political change. With the background of Chemnitz in the Eastern part of Germany it follows the lives of Dieter S., a Stasi operative, and Kai T. the man on whom he spies over the duration of the life of the GDR to which both are loyal because of its creation in opposition to fascism."Sylvia Petter has captured with wonderful brevity and efficiency a weird bit of history that came and went in a relatively short time, yet caused incalculable havoc to ordinary people's lives in the most absurd and petty ways. She tells it in flash form but the story lingers long after you've read it." - Simon Edge, author of The Hopkins Conundrum"Sylvia Petter's timely novel in flash evokes perfectly the letters sent, intercepted, and finally received, through which this story of fragmented yet enduring love and hope is told. Set against the backdrop of Chemnitz before and after the fall of the Berlin wall, Petter's precise prose brings to life in crisp, vivid detail a not too distant past that rings eerily true to the present. A portent." - Rachel J Fenton, author of Beerstorming with Charlotte Bront in New York "Who can you love? Who can you trust? Boldly reimagining the flash fiction form, Sylvia Petter has created an epic tale in a compressed space, a compelling, powerful, poetic retelling of history filled with secrets, dissidents, revolution, redemption and the indiscriminating winds of political change that touch us all." - Nancy Stohlman, Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction

As a child in Australia in the Fifties, Katrina Klain is taunted in the playground as a Nazi, long before she knows what the word means. Her German mother and her Austrian father seem to be ordinary people who simply ended up on the wrong side of history, but Katrina yearns to know more about her origins. Leaving the New World behind as soon as she can, she heads to Vienna, where she imagines her Germanic name will no longer be a burden, armed with what turns out to be an inexhaustible list of questions. Is the sleazy uncle exiled to Spain a crook or a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance? Why does her father insist his brother is dead? And is her cousin in East Germany really a Stasi agent? Decades later, during a long flight back to Australia, Katrina attempts to reassemble the pieces of the puzzle she has spent so long researching. In her dream-like version of an in-flight movie, a mysterious other-worldly guide seems to know - and have control over - her own future. Told in a thrillingly inventive narrative style, Sylvia Petter's debut novel is a powerful, pacy tale about making peace with the past, which also paints a richly evocative picture of Central Europe in the early decades after the war.