**Please note: Due to tube and train strike action taking place on 4 October 2023 across London, this event has been rescheduled and is now taking place on Thursday, 5 October 2023 at 7PM instead.**
We are excited to welcome Benjamin Quaderer, one of the most interesting recent literary voices from Liechtenstein and Austria, at the ACF London this autumn. He will read from and discuss his widely acclaimed debut novel 'Für immer die Alpen' (The Alps Forever) with journalist and broadcaster Seán Williams.
Join us for this bilingual reading and discussion, hosted by Andrea Capovilla, offering you a fascinating insight into the novel.
Benjamin Quaderer is the most prominent young author to emerge from Liechtenstein, the Principality which is also the focus of this novel, ‘a crime drama about a data thief, which then turns into a global story of corruption in a nutshell’ (Seán Williams).
Inspired by the case of the data thief – or whistleblower? – Heinrich Kieber and the 2008 tax scandal, Quaderer has written a story of international intrigue. But the book is also about the identity of a locality nestled between Austria and Switzerland. Quaderer’s inventive and unreliable narrator, Johann Kaiser, is equally fascinating as a clever and charming conman, perhaps reminiscent of Thomas Mann’s Felix Krull, and as a reflection of a society that produced and enabled him.
Benjamin Quaderer’s reading of extracts from the novel will be followed by a discussion with Seán Williams and a Q&A.
The evening is moderated by Andrea Capovilla, Director of the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature & Culture at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (University of London).
Read a sample translation by Elisabeth Lauffer here: https://www.new-books-in-german.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Quaderer_FUER-IMMER-DIE-ALPEN_English-Sample-Translation.pdf
Benjamin Quaderer was born in 1989 in Feldkirch, Austria, and grew up in Liechtenstein. He studied creative writing in Hildesheim and Vienna. Für immer die Alpen was awarded the Rauriser Literaturpreis, the Debütpreis der lit.Cologne as well as the Uwe-Johnson-Förderpreis.
Dr Seán Williams is Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, a journalist and broadcaster. He specialises in German and European Cultural History and covered the Principality of Liechtenstein for the Economist on the state's 300th anniversary: https://www.economist.com/1843/2019/01/16/liechtenstein-the-magic-princedom
The event is organised in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Culture Liechtenstein and the Liechtenstein Cultural Foundation.
