Product details
- ISBN 9780241837887
- Weight: 650g
- Dimensions: 156 x 240mm
- Publication Date: 20 Oct 2026
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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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 – each piece a razor-sharp feminist masterpiece, as urgent as a confession – arrives here in full force. 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).
Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973) was author, poet and philosopher, writing short stories, radio plays, essays and a novel, Malina. Born in Austria to a Nazi party member, she rose to prominence in the 1950s with writing that grappled with the German language “after Auschwitz”. She was the constant subject of media attention for her celebrated writing, her social critique, and her famous affairs. She won all the major German and Austrian literary awards, including the prestigious Georg Buchner prize, and since her death she has been recognized as a significant influence on such writers as Günter Grass, Max Frisch, Christa Wolf, and Peter Handke. The annual Ingeborg Bachmann Prize is one of the most important awards for literature in German.
Philip Boehm (Translator)
Philip Boehm translates books and plays by German and Polish writers such as Herta Müller, Franz Kafka and Hanna Krall. He also works as a stage director and playwright.
Tess Lewis (Translator)
Tess Lewis is a writer and translator from French and German. Her translations include works by Walter Benjamin, Ingeborg Bachmann, Peter Handke, and Montaigne.
