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"""This is one of the best anthologies I have ever read. It now has 43 tales in it, all of them exciting, all beautifully translated, ranging from the Austro-Hungarian decadence to modern science fiction. It also has excellent introduction, describing the particular qualities of Austrian - as opposed to German, or any other - literatures. The Austro-Hungarina Empire before the second world war was elegant, frivolous, possessed by baroque images of death and dissolution, full of witty sidelong comments on ossified political structures, in the form of bureaucracies and castles. Both od these were explored by Kafka, who is central in this anthology, in that there are three tales by him, and his rediscovery after the nazi period has been a dominant and clearly benign influence on modern Austrian writing. The Austrians, according to Mitchell, have complementary passions for detail and for the dissolution of boundaries - between the real and the unreal, between dream and waking, between life and death. One of Mitchell's great achievements is the juxtaposition of a string of tales in which people hover between life and death, in a kind of animated limbo, constructed with a love of detail rather than a desire to create vague horror."" A.S. Byatt, Book of the Week in The Guardian"

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9781903517130

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For many years an academic with a special interest in Austrian literature and culture, Mike Mitchell has been a freelance literary translator since 1995. He has published over eighty translations from German and French, including Gustav Meyrink's five novels and The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy. His translation of Rosendorfer's Letters Back to Ancient China won the 1998 Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize after he had been shortlisted in previous years for his translations of Stephanie by Herbert Rosendorfer and The Golem by Gustav Meyrink. His translations have been shortlisted four times for The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize: Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen in 1999, The Other Side by Alfred Kubin in 2000, The Bells of Bruges by Georges Rodenbach in 2008 and The Lairds of Cromarty by Jean Pierre Ohl in 2013. His recent translations include The Prepper Room by Karen Duve, The Continuation of Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen, The Devil's Road by Jean-Pierre Ohl and A Dutiful Son by Pascal Bruckner. His biography of Gustav Meyrink: Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink was published by Dedalus in November 2008. For many years an academic with a special interest in Austrian literature and culture, Mike Mitchell has been a freelance literary translator since 1995. He has published over eighty translations from German and French, including Gustav Meyrink's five novels and The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy. His translation of Rosendorfer's Letters Back to Ancient China won the 1998 Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize after he had been shortlisted in previous years for his translations of Stephanie by Herbert Rosendorfer and The Golem by Gustav Meyrink. His translations have been shortlisted four times for The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize: Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen in 1999, The Other Side by Alfred Kubin in 2000, The Bells of Bruges by Georges Rodenbach in 2008 and The Lairds of Cromarty by Jean Pierre Ohl in 2013. His recent translations include The Prepper Room by Karen Duve, The Continuation of Simplicissimus by Johann Grimmelshausen, The Devil's Road by Jean-Pierre Ohl and A Dutiful Son by Pascal Bruckner. His biography of Gustav Meyrink: Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink was published by Dedalus in November 2008.

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