Literature and books

“Tagebuchtag”, a nationwide series of events in Austria celebrating the diary as a literary form, was founded by Austrian artist Traute Molik-Riemer in 2006. This Autumn the ACF London is presenting this unique project for the first time outside Austria by hosting an evening devoted to published diaries at the center of which stands Ruth Maier's Diary, published recently in a number of European countries. Born into a Viennese Jewish family in 1920, Ruth started keeping a diary as a young girl and maintained a prodigious output until her deportation from Norway (to where she had emigrated after the Anschluss in 1938) to Auschwitz in November 1942. Her entries reveal a sharp wit, a keen sense of narrative, and lyrical flair making her diary one of the most original testimonies to emerge from the Nazi era.