THE COMPLETE STORIES

This new translation of early, uncollected, and previously published stories by Bachmann, the renowned Austrian author of essays, poetry, and fiction, spans 27 years of her work.

Opening with a story written in 1945 when she was 19, and ending with one completed the year before her death in 1973 at 47, this collection showcases the breadth of Bachmann’s interests and the deepening of her central themes. In “The Welder,” a working-class man discovers reading and ruins his life. In “The Commandant,” a man attempting to cross a border without documentation becomes caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare of confused identity. Themes of class tensions, borders, displacement, and homesickness recur. From “I Too Lived in Arcadia”: “I reached the border at night...my homeland had no currency exchange agreements with other countries, so my money was worthless.” Bachmann moves easily between male and female points of view—often in the same story—and power dynamics between the sexes is a recurrent concern. In “One Step Towards Gomorrah,” a musician imagines leaving her husband for a female admirer, escaping the restrictions of her role as wife and foisting them onto the other woman. World War II casts a long shadow, as do questions of guilt and victimhood. Many of the characters are Austrians living abroad. “I’ve figured out that I don’t belong anywhere anymore, there’s no place I long for,” a man tells his lover in “Three Paths to the Lake.” “At one point I thought I had a heart and that I belonged in Austria. But everything eventually comes to an end...something inside me is bleeding away, but I don’t know what it is.” Elusiveness—of happiness, of belonging—extends to truth itself, as in “A Wildermuth,” about a disillusioned judge. Bachmann writes with quicksilver intelligence and intensity. One of the great pleasures of this excellent collection is the chance to watch her talent develop and her originality come into its own.

A multifaceted collection by a brilliant writer who died too young.