“Literature is forever. It’s eternal.”
German author and journalist Eva Menasse about her acclaimed novel Darkenbloom, the need to speak up publicly and defend democracy against old and new enemies.
“Journalism or history has to stick with the facts and cannot interpret people’s actions. This is what only literature or art can do. They bring these characters alive. This is what triggers me when I write fiction.”
The novel Darkenbloom circles around two historical events – the fall of the Iron Curtain in the fall of 1989 and a war crime in the Austrian town Rechnitz, close to the Austrian-Hungarian border, taking place at the end of the Second World War.
“I was a very shy person, but I think I was always determined, and this sense of outspokenness that people link up with me is just; it has some family roots. My father was a refugee as a child, and he had to emigrate to the United Kingdom at the age of eight years, where he was not allowed to speak German on the streets because, during war times, it was dangerous. When he returned, he rather did not talk about his past as a refugee child because, in these years right after the war, everybody wanted you to forget the past. So, he did not make a fuss about his particular life story. My brother and I were completely the opposite. We used to speak out as soon as we were able to publish, as soon as we were accepted as writers. I think we are making up at some point for what happened to our father.”
To Eva Menasse, it is essential to engage in social and political discussions beyond the realm of literature.
“When I’m participating in discussions, I always speak out as a citizen and part of our democracy. I really think that we are living in dangerous times, not only because of climate change but also because technology might be eating us up.”
“It is an interesting question if art can help understand these developments because art itself has become the goal of discussion. There’s a lot: ‘Is this allowed or should this be prohibited in the arts? Should we cover up naked women?’ These questions were discussed by the feminists in the 70s. And in the 70s, they said: ‘No, we should not cover up naked women. We should also show naked men.’ Nowadays, it’s the other way around. And this is frightening.”
Eva Menasse (b. 1970 in Vienna) is an Austrian author and journalist. She has studied history and German literature and is the sister of the known writer Robert Menasse. Menasse had a successful career as a journalist, writing for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Frankfurt and as a correspondent from Prague and Berlin. She left the paper to write her first novel, Vienna, which was shortlisted for the 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK. Her acclaimed novel Darkenbloom will be published in the UK in the autumn of 2024. In November 2023, she published an essay on digitalisation, social media and the state of the public debate Alles und nichts sagen. Vom Zustand der Debatte in der Digitalmoderne.
Eva Menasse has received numerous awards: The Gerty Spies Prize for Literature, the Heinrich Böll Prize, the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize, the Jonathan Swift Prize, the Austrian Book Prize, the Bruno Kreisky Prize, and the Jakob Wassermann Literature prize. She was also a writer-in-residence in Mainz and a fellow at the Villa Massimo in Rome. Eva Menasse is also increasingly active as an essayist, for which she received the Ludwig Börne Prize in 2019. She lives in Berlin and is a founding member and, together with Deniz Yücel, spokesperson for PEN Berlin, launched in 2022.
Eva Menasse was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in August 2023. The conversation took place during the festival Louisiana Literature at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.
Camera: Simon Weyhe
Edited by: Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2024
Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet, C.L. Davids Fond og Samling and Fritz Hansen.
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