Maja Haderlap "Nachtfrauen" reading

The Schwaz Literature Forum and Kunstraum Schwaz are delighted to welcome Bachmann Prize winner Maja Haderlap to Schwaz for the first time. As part of the Bachmann exhibition at Kunstraum Schwaz, she will be reading from her novel *Nachtfrauen*, published in 2023.

As Mira gets into the car to set off for Southern Carinthia, she knows that difficult days lie ahead: her elderly mother must be prepared to move out of the house where, decades ago, she found shelter as an unskilled worker with her then-young children. Indeed, over the course of the following weeks, memories of a childhood she experienced as traumatic begin to surface – a childhood weighed down as much by her father’s early death as by the rigid patriarchal order and the dogmas of the Catholic Church. The old, unresolved conflicts resurface, and Mira begins to understand that they are fuelled by the long-silenced life stories of her female ancestors: one a day labourer who lost her life in dramatic circumstances, the other a partisan who never returned to Carinthia after the end of the Second World War.

In her novel, Maja Haderlap uses vivid imagery to recount the lives of three generations of women, their entanglement in imposed and internalised ideals, and their struggle for autonomy. The story of *Die Nachtfrauen* is one of loss, silence and guilt, in which, despite everything, forbearance and respect for one another – perhaps even love – are not abandoned.

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About the author

Maja Haderlap was born in Bad Eisenkappel/Železna Kapla (Carinthia). After studying theatre studies and German language and literature, she was a lecturer at the University of Klagenfurt and, for many years, chief dramaturg at the Klagenfurt City Theatre. She published poetry in Slovenian before being awarded the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2011 for an extract from her debut novel *Engel des Vergessens* (*Angel of Oblivion*). Further prestigious awards followed, such as the Max Frisch Prize in 2018 and the Christine Lavant Prize in 2021. *Nachtfrauen* is her first book published by Suhrkamp Verlag.

Admission is free; donations are welcome. No booking is required (‘first come, first served’).

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Image: Ingeborg Bachmann, 8. Jugendkulturwoche 1957 in Innsbruck. Fotocredit: TLM, Bibliothek, Foto Wolfgang Pfaundler, NL 268

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