»let's hold each other tight and hold everything tight!«
The Correspondence
Edited by Roland Berbig and Irene Fußl. Collected Works and Letters. Salzburger Bachmann Edition
»let's hold each other tight and hold everything tight!« / Salzburger Bachmann Edition
The Correspondence
Edited by Roland Berbig and Irene Fußl. Collected Works and Letters. Salzburger Bachmann Edition
Ilse Aichinger and Ingeborg Bachmann: documents of a friendship
»You cannot stay in no man's land.«
Ingeborg Bachmann in a letter to Ilse Aichinger and Günter Eich, November 23,1956
»You cannot stay in no man's land.«
Ingeborg Bachmann in a letter to Ilse Aichinger and Günter Eich, November 23,1956
Ingeborg Bachmann and Ilse Aichinger met in post-war Vienna. Two women in the male-dominated literary business, from different backgrounds, with fundamentally different experiences during the Nazi era and with opposing life plans become the most important Austrian authors after 1945. Despite the inevitable literary competition, they try to maintain their friendship.
Their correspondence from 1949 to 1962, in which Günter Eich, as Aichinger’s husband, was also involved,...
Their correspondence from 1949 to 1962, in which Günter Eich, as Aichinger’s husband, was also involved,...
Read more
Ingeborg Bachmann and Ilse Aichinger met in post-war Vienna. Two women in the male-dominated literary business, from different backgrounds, with fundamentally different experiences during the Nazi era and with opposing life plans become the most important Austrian authors after 1945. Despite the inevitable literary competition, they try to maintain their friendship.
Their correspondence from 1949 to 1962, in which Günter Eich, as Aichinger’s husband, was also involved, documents this precarious attempt in roughly 100 letters – 30 from Bachmann, 74 from Aichinger and Eich. The strikingly familial tone is set by Aichinger. For her, who lost close relatives to the Shoah and was subjected to persecution in Vienna, family remained the greatest asset to be protected and Bachmann is made a part of it as Günter Eich’s »third twin« and »little sister«.
The fact that this friendship failed despite all their efforts is part of the tragedy that is hidden in this correspondence and that only rarely emerges in a »searching, for no reason, pathological, for the reason for the absence of any message [...] with the desire for a word«.
Their correspondence from 1949 to 1962, in which Günter Eich, as Aichinger’s husband, was also involved, documents this precarious attempt in roughly 100 letters – 30 from Bachmann, 74 from Aichinger and Eich. The strikingly familial tone is set by Aichinger. For her, who lost close relatives to the Shoah and was subjected to persecution in Vienna, family remained the greatest asset to be protected and Bachmann is made a part of it as Günter Eich’s »third twin« and »little sister«.
The fact that this friendship failed despite all their efforts is part of the tragedy that is hidden in this correspondence and that only rarely emerges in a »searching, for no reason, pathological, for the reason for the absence of any message [...] with the desire for a word«.
»A correspondence of unsparing tenderness. A parable-like drama and, in print, a prime example of diligent editing.« Paul Jandl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»This correspondence is not just revealing in a literary sense. It is also an impressive study of women’s life plans before the socio-political upheavals following the end of the sixties.« Helmut Böttiger, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»The last lines of this volume, which is well worth reading, are penned by Ingeborg Bachmann. In them she confesses to her friend that she has ›said far too little. To have thanked you too little, to have seen you too rarely -‹. The letter was never sent.« Sandra Kegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»a small, heart-wrenching lesson about the economy of love« Dagmar Just, Die Weltwoche
»The letters are particularly revealing and novel in how they lay bare the authors’ different life plans.« Elke Schlinsog, Deutschlandfunk Kultur
»This correspondence is not just revealing in a literary sense. It is also an impressive study of women’s life plans before the socio-political upheavals following the end of the sixties.« Helmut Böttiger, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»The last lines of this volume, which is well worth reading, are penned by Ingeborg Bachmann. In them she confesses to her friend that she has ›said far too little. To have thanked you too little, to have seen you too rarely -‹. The letter was never sent.« Sandra Kegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»a small, heart-wrenching lesson about the economy of love« Dagmar Just, Die Weltwoche
»The letters are particularly revealing and novel in how they lay bare the authors’ different life plans.« Elke Schlinsog, Deutschlandfunk Kultur
»A correspondence of unsparing tenderness. A parable-like drama and, in print, a prime example of diligent editing.« Paul Jandl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»This correspondence is not just revealing in a literary sense. It is also an impressive study of women’s life plans before the socio-political upheavals following the end of the sixties.« Helmut Böttiger, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»The last lines of this volume,...
»This correspondence is not just revealing in a literary sense. It is also an impressive study of women’s life plans before the socio-political upheavals following the end of the sixties.« Helmut Böttiger, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»The last lines of this volume,...
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2021, 379 pages
Persons
Ingeborg Bachmann
Author
Ingeborg Bachmann was born on June 25, 1926 in Klagenfurt. She began to write when she was at school. She studied Philosophy in Innsbruck, Graz and eventually in Vienna, where she met, among others, Hans Weigel. In 1949 Bachmann wrote her dissertation entitled »The Critical Reception of the Existential Philosophy of Martin Heidegger«. She subsequently started working for the Allied radio station Rot-Weiss-Rot. Her friendship with Paul Celan majorly influenced her thought. Ingeborg Bachmann is considered one of the most important German-language poets and writes of the 20th century. She died in Rome on October 17, 1973 .
Ingeborg Bachmann
Author
Ingeborg Bachmann was born on June 25, 1926 in Klagenfurt. She began to write when she was at school. She studied Philosophy in Innsbruck, Graz...
© Renate von Mangoldt
Günter Eich
Author
Günter Eich was born on February 1, 1907 in Lebus an der Oder. In his early childhood, the family moved often. After graduating from high school, Eich studied Sinology in Berlin. In 1927 Eich began publishing his first poems and texts, some under a pseudonym. In 1932 he abandoned his studies and began a career as a freelance writer for a friend’s newspaper. In 1933 he began writing radio plays for various German radio stations. In 1939 he was drafted into the Luftwaffe as a driver and radio operator. Almost all his manuscripts were lost in an air raid on Berlin in 1943. After the war he continued to publish poetry, prose, screenplays, but above all radio plays. In 1947 he became a member of the Gruppe 47, whose first prize he won in 1950. He married Ilse Aichinger in 1953. His...
Günter Eich
Author
Günter Eich was born on February 1, 1907 in Lebus an der Oder. In his early childhood, the family moved often. After graduating from high...
© Hilde Zemann
Ilse Aichinger
Author
Ilse Aichinger was born on November 1, 1921 in Vienna, where she died on November 11, 2016. As a half Jew, she was drafted into forced labour during World War II. In 1945, she began studying Medicine for five semesters. In 1949, she became an editor at S. Fischer publishing house in Vienna and in 1951 a member of the Gruppe 47. She married Günter Eich in 1953. In 1956, she was made a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. She was also a member of the German PEN Centre.
Ilse Aichinger
Author
Ilse Aichinger was born on November 1, 1921 in Vienna, where she died on November 11, 2016. As a half Jew, she was drafted into forced labour during...
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2024
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2024
»Senza casa«
Autobiographical essays, a ›war diary‹ and previously unpublished autobiographical material, along with the ›Neapolitan Diary‹ from Bachmann’s heady days as a freelance writer. Gathered together for the first time in this new volume of the Salzburger Bachmann Edition, these texts offer new insights into the life of this remarkable author. Questioning and correcting stereotypical images of...
Year of Publication: 2022
Ingeborg Bachmann, Max FrischYear of Publication: 2022
»We Didn’t Do Well.«
Spring 1958: Ingeborg Bachmann – celebrated poet, winner of Literary Prize of Gruppe 47 and cover star of Der Spiegel – is broadcasting the radio play Der gute Gott von...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Italy (Feltrinelli)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (speak low)
Year of Publication: 2022
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2022
Invocation of Ursa Major
The verses in Ingeborg Bachmann’s second collection of poetry, Invocation of Ursa Major (1956), caused a sensation when they were published and soon became canonised: they were immensely...
Rights sold to:
Italy (Adelphi)
Year of Publication: 2020
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2020
The Thirtieth Year
In 1956, at 30 years of age, Ingeborg Bachman began with the first drafts for the book, which is now to published in the Salzburger Bachmann Edition. It would take five years until all seven stories had been submitted to Piper Verlag ready for publication in the spring of 1961 and the first volume could be published in July that same year.
Of the writing phase the...
Year of Publication: 2018
Ingeborg Bachmann, Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2018
»Write down everything that is true«
The hitherto unpublished and unknown correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Hans Magnus Enzensberger allows one to relive how, after the Second World War, two of the most prominent writers in the German language chose to depict and regard the world, literature and the publishing industry, but also how they wished to present and be regarded themselves.
One was...
Year of Publication: 2017
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2017
Male Oscuro
Ingeborg Bachmann’s dream notes, correspondence drafts and records from the time of her illness are of great literary interest as the primary elements of the subsequent Todesarten-texts. In addition, these writings are apt to further our knowledge about her illness and the phenomenon of illness itself. They are outrageous, courageous in their analytic approach, defeated...
Year of Publication: 2017
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2017
The Book Goldmann
The Book Goldmann is the name Ingeborg Bachmann gave to her great narrative project, which she cherished until the end. This edition renders the previously only fragmentarily...
Rights sold to:
Turkey (Can)
Year of Publication: 2011
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2011
The Radio Familiy
In autumn of the year 1952, a »chain-smoking mermaid with angel’s hair who more whispered than spoke« entered the radio play department of the American occupied forces Rot-Weiß-Rot...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Turkey (Can)
Year of Publication: 2010
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2010
War Diary
The present volume for the first time compiles the war diary Ingeborg Bachmann kept from late summer 1944 to June 1945, as well as the surviving letters from Jack Hamesh – a unique document...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), France (Actes Sud), Italy (Adelphi), Poland (Czarne), Denmark (Grif), Czech Republic (Pulchra), Turkey (Ketebe), Ukraine (Osnovy), Israel (Hakkibutz Hameuchad – Sifriyat Poalim)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Akal)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Audiobuch)
Year of Publication: 2008
Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul CelanYear of Publication: 2008
Herzzeit
»Books of this stature appear only every few decades.« Deutschlandradio
The correspondence from the period 1948-61 – a last letter penned by Celan...
The correspondence from the period 1948-61 – a last letter penned by Celan...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Portuguese rights (Antígona), Chinese simplex rights (China Renmin UP), Russia (Ad marginem), France (Seuil), Italy (Nottetempo), Netherlands (Meulenhoff), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Sweden (Ellerströms), Japan (Seidosha), Poland (A5), Czech Republic (Pulchra), Romania (Art), Turkey (Kirmizi Kedi), Ukraine (Knihy XXI), Georgia (Ibis)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Fondo Cultura), Croatia (OceanMore)
Year of Publication: 2006
Günter EichYear of Publication: 2006
Collected Poems
»Be uncomfortable; be sand, not oil, in the machinery of the world« – this is perhaps the most famous line from the poems of Günter Eich, who was at the height of his fame in the 1950s and 60s and whose poems, alongside those of Gottfried Benn and Karl Krolow, were to many readers the epitome of what modern poetry could achieve after 1945. The motivations that had led...
Year of Publication: 1981
Günter EichYear of Publication: 1981
Inventory
This selection made by Günter Eich himself from his work shortly before his death gathers poems, radio plays and prose created over a period of more than forty years.
Eich, one of the most important poets of the post-war period, curated this edition from the perspective of someone who considers the effect of his own work, reflects on readers’ reactions and responds to them:...
Eich, one of the most important poets of the post-war period, curated this edition from the perspective of someone who considers the effect of his own work, reflects on readers’ reactions and responds to them:...
Year of Publication: 1971
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 1971
Malina
»In Malina, originally published in German in 1971, Ingeborg Bachmann invites the reader into a world stretched to the very limits of language. An unnamed narrator, a writer in Vienna, is...
Rights sold to:
USA & Canada (New Directions), UK & Commonwealth (Penguin), Russia (AST), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Estaçao Liberdade), Portuguese rights (Antígona), France (Seuil), Italy (Adelphi), Netherlands (Koppernik), Denmark (Grif), Sweden (Ellerströms), Korea (Minumsa), Japan (Chikuma Shobo), Hungary (Jelenkor), Romania (Humanitas), Serbia (Kontrast), Turkey (Yapi Kredi), Greece (Potlatch), Albania (Aleph), Ukraine (Klasyka), Georgia (Karchkhadze Publishing)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Akal), Catalan rights (Edicions 62), Norway (Bokvennen), Finland (Weilin & Göös), Poland (A5, Polish audio book: Mala Litera), Czech Republic (Mlada fronta), Slovakia (Slovensky Spisovatel), Bulgaria (Na Otetschestwenia Front), Lithuania (Lithuanian Writers Union), Slovenia (Pomuska Zalozba), Macedonia (Tri), Israel (Hakibutz Hameuchad / Sifriat Poalim)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg), German Audiobook (DAV), German Radio Play (HR2)
Year of Publication: 1953
Günter EichYear of Publication: 1953
Dreams
»Anyone who has read the four dream plays feels as though touched by magic. In these dream scenes, the experience of fate and existence in our present time has become an immediate image and...
Rights sold to:
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Thailand (Nanmee Books), Czech Republic (Dilia)
Year of Publication: 1953
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 1953
Deferred Time
For the young Ingeborg Bachmann and her generation, the great hope after the war soon proved deceptive. The themes in Bachmann's first volume of poetry, Deferred Time (1953), are representative of the experience that defines writing after 1945: Departure and farewell, guilt and memory. In the dramatic gestures and memorable images of her poetic language, this experience found a...
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