The ACF London is delighted to welcome the acclaimed Austrian novelist and essayist Teresa Präauer for a special evening celebrating the English publication of her latest novel Cooking in the Wrong Century, translated by Eleanor Updegraff, and published by Pushkin Press.
Cooking In the Wrong Century tells the story of a keenly observed dinner party in several attempts, opening up different avenues of how the evening might unfold. It is a witty novel about taste in our age of social media, with a spotify playlist as an ironic musical counterpoint. A celebrated novelist, Teresa Präauer has also made a name for herself as an incisive and witty essayist with her own column in the broadsheet “Süddeutsche Zeitung” on the ways we speak and live now. She writes about images and fashion, about trash TV and pop culture, about art and everyday life, and in Cooking in the Wrong Century the qualities of the novelist and the essayist are merged to great effect.
Teresa Präauer and Eleanor Updegraff will discuss the novel, its themes and the process of literary translation.
The event will be chaired by Andrea Capovilla, Director of the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Culture and will conclude with an audience Q&A session.
This bilingual event is accessible to non-German speakers.
Teresa Präauer is an author and visual artist based in Vienna. She studied German Studies at the University of Salzburg and the Humboldt University of Berlin as well as painting at the Mozarteum Salzburg. Her novels include “Für den Herrscher aus Übersee” (For the Ruler from Overseas), “Johnny und Jean,” “Oh Schimmi”, as well as the essay “Tier werden” (Becoming Animal). She has received numerous awards for her novels, essays, and short stories, including the 2022 Ben Witter Prize, the 2017 Erich Fried Prize. “Kochen im falschen Jahrhundert, (Wallstein 2023) is her first novel to be translated into English and won the highly prestigious 2024 Bremer Literaturpreis.
Eleanor Updegraff https://www.eleanorupdegraff.co.uk/about is a writer, editor, and translator of contemporary German and Austrian literature. Born in London and raised in Hampshire, she lived for several years in Vienna and Carinthia before returning to the UK. Her recent translations include Tanja Paar’s The Trembling World and Annabelle Hirsch’s critically acclaimed A History of Women in 101 Objects.
