On Sunday evening, when she received the Bodensee Literature Prize, Roßbacher described herself as a “prize beginner”, since Monday evening she has had to describe herself as a “prize professional” as the winner of the Austrian Book Prize. For her fourth novel “Mon Cheri and our demolished souls”, which the jury, consisting of Bernhard Bastien, Edith-Ulla Gasser, Stefan Gmünder, Günther Stocker and Katharina Teutsch, praised as “a story regarding letting go”, with “the finest slapstick”. work, she was awarded the main prize in the Viennese casino on Schwarzenbergplatz.
The author, who was born in Vorarlberg in 1979 and lives in Berlin, follows Friederike Mayröcker (“fleurs”), Eva Menasse (“Animals for Advanced People”), Daniel Wisser (“Queen of the Mountains”), Norbert Gstrein (“When I was young “), Xaver Bayer (“Stories with Marianne”) and Raphaela Edelbauer (“Dave”) in the list of award winners of the award, which has existed since 2016 and is jointly organized by the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Public Service and Sport (BMKÖS). with the main association of the Austrian book trade. The Austrian Book Prize marks the start of Buch Wien, the most important event in the Austrian book industry, which will take place from Wednesday to Sunday this year.
Female figure “that you will never forget”
In particular, the jury highlighted Roßbacher’s protagonist Charlie Benz, a female character “whom you never forget”. The first-person narrator is initially a long-term single and works without any major marketing knowledge as the person responsible for at the Berlin food start-up LuckyLili, which successfully sells vegan muesli bars.
Charlie has many fears, including opening letters because they might bring bad news. Her mail is therefore opened by Mr. Schabowksi, with whom she also discusses all her fears. “A desolate and comical female character and thus a rarity in literary history,” was the verdict of the jury. “Because weird women have a hard time with readership.”
The fact that Charlie is not only funny, but also “a pioneer of alternative life and love models” is shown in the course of the 500 pages in which she accompanies Mr. Schabowksi through his fears and a serious illness, suddenly three men as fathers for their unborn child come into question and she follows the history of her ancestors in Bad Gastein. The four other shortlist nominees Robert Menasse (“The Extension”), Anna Kim (“Story of a Child”), Helena Adler (“Fretten”) and Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker (“Poacher”) received EUR 2,500 each.
Debut award for powerful psychiatric novel
The debut prize, sponsored by the Chamber of Labour, went to Lena-Marie Biertimpel. The author, born in Hamburg in 1991, studied language arts at the University of Applied Arts and had previously attracted attention with her theater work. In “Air Cushion” the readers follow a first-person narrator in a crisis situation through her stay in a psychiatric hospital. ‘Peach’, as she is called by her boyfriend Johnny who stayed in the distant hometown and with whom she communicates via cell phone messages, also explores the past of a broken family, her parents and the two sisters who she loves over the course of the novel only names the “one” and the “other”.
Despite all the drasticness and harshness in places, there is also a lot of empathy in this linguistically elaborate novel, which is broken down into the shortest chapters and which the jury attests to be “a haunting debut”, which is “powerful and tender at the same time”. The two other shortlist nominees Sirka Elpass (“I blow-dry my eyelashes”) and Anna Maria Stadler (“Maremma”) also received EUR 2,500 each.