Welcome!
Margarita Kinstner is an Austrian writer, who was born in 1976 in Vienna and now lives in Graz. She was awarded with the Theodor Körner Prize for Literature and the Styrian award for youth literature. Besides her 3 novels, she has written a theatre play (premiere 2014) and an audiobook with poems and songs for children. (2019).
NOVELS
Mittelstadtrauschen (Downtown Static)
A remarkable debut of a distinctive literary talent: Margarita Kinstner writes about loneliness, yearning and love in Vienna, “the city of the soul”.
Unnerved by the naked flesh of a breast-feeding mother, Marie reels through the café, spills her coffee and stumbles into Jakob – triggering a whole series of stories.
Jakob falls in love with Marie and splits up with his girlfriend Sonja, who in turn soon gets together with Gery. She has no idea that Gery was Joe’s best friend – Joe, who used to live with Marie until he took his life with a spectacular swan-dive into the Danube. Then a mysterious last will turns up with precise stipulations: it is to be read out in the presence of Gery and Marie in the Prater fairground, following an intricately choreographed routine.
Margarita Kinstner’s stories unfold in layers, one unfurling into the next, the characters brimming with yearning and greed, desperation or sheer apathy. A rondo with destiny, propelled by shattered dreams and lost hopes, set in a city where beauty and the chasms of the psyche live side by side – with Death watching the dancers from the wings…
(>website Hanser Literaturverlage)
The book has not been translated into the English language, but chapter 1 has been translated for the Festival of the European debut novel in 2013.
Die Schmetterlingsfängerin (The Butterfly Catcher)
Following the resounding success of her debut Mittelstadtrauschen, Margarita Kinstner’s new novel explores the theme of staying put or leaving, of the courage it takes to start life afresh and the question of what might have been, if only …
Katja will be joining her partner Danijel in Bosnia in a few weeks’ time. She is expecting his child, and his decision to accept a position at the local hospital in Sarajevo hasn’t left her much choice. Her bags are already packed and the date for the move has been arranged. Katja has a few days left, so she goes back to the valley where she grew up to revisit the landscape of her childhood …
The tales her great aunt Therese told her – stories she listened to with rapt attention — left so many questions unanswered. Why did Katja’s great-grandfather leave Bosnia for Austria? What would have happened if her grandmother had plucked up the courage to follow the love of her life to Switzerland? Katja gets more and more involved in the history of her family – and begins to understand that home is a place in our heart.
Dreaming is one thing; living your dreams is another matter …
Papaverweg 6 (Poppy Lane 6)
Why is the baby in top 10 crying so much? What’s wrong with the family in top 9? Why does the Egyptian neighbour in top 2 need a walking frame? And what about Alice, the young blogger in Top 4, and her neighbour Peter?
Oskar, the old man across the street, is observing everything meticulously. Day by day he watches his neighbours — and the old red beech beside the house that keeps a dark secret.
