Margit Schreiner – The Book of Disillusionments

fiction (34,000 words)

176pp

» About the author

No. 1 on the ORF Bestseller List


»Who would have thought our parents would ever abandon us like that.«

»Dying came more easily to me than I’d imagined, compared to my life. It doesn’t take much to exhale one last time and not to breathe in again. It practically takes care of itself. Once your mind is made up.«

But what is life? Childhood in which the possibilities seem endless and we embark on a journey of discovery, misunderstood, however, by our parents? Does life begin at thirty when we are making decisions – and when at the same time there is gnawing uncertainty that they could be the wrong ones? Or at fifty when we are paying the price for those decisions and turning into whiners?

Margit Schreiner’s relentless, impartial gaze penetrates far beyond the human existence. With a virtuoso narrative power and succinctness the BUCH DER ENTTÄUSCHUNGEN describes the unstoppable process of disillusionment that characterizes life.


»An air of gentle cynicism hangs over Margit Schreiner’s sentences, like bitter chocolate. Her refinement lies in a pseudo-naivety which goes beyond the surface but shows the normality of the terrible, and vice versa. The narrator never loses the delicate balance between cheerfulness and grief, alienation and sympathy.«
Ulrich Weinzierl, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Rights sold

India (Hindi) - Saar Sansaar
Turkey – Metis

paperback - Goldmann

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Reviews

»Extremely well-written, very wise, with a great deal of irony. A marvellous book.«
Elke Heidenreich in Lesen!

»Schreiner's writing is more brilliant than ever.«
Literarische Welt

»My favourite book.«
Zsuzsa Bánk

»A marvellous novel, and full of life. Impossible to put down until the very last sentence has been savoured.«
Wiener Zeitung

»Pleasantly unpredictable. Steeped both in the dark and bright essence of life, Schreiner’s most poetical work to date.«
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Margit Schreiner shows a remarkable empathy for her characters. Her prose reads like music.«
Michael Schornstheimer, NDR-Kultur

»The ‚Book of Disillusionments’ may be read as a final speech for those aspects of life that are not dominated by economic competition and efficiency, but require human empathy and patience. (...) Margit Schreiner draws attention to the private sphere, where true quality of life is to be found, and its political relevance.«
Die Presse

»Brilliantly observed. Schreiner juxtaposes the worlds of toddlers with those of the dying, pointing to their many similarities: both reduced to sensory perception, marked by solitude, helplessness and misunderstanding.«
profil

»Accomplished writing, funny and insightful (...) Once again, Margit Schreiner proves herself a master of gender prose (...) unmasking society’s power structures and ideological promises.«
Der Standard

»Schreiner expertly pictures the bitter nuances of life. (...) Her brilliant observations on the sense, or non-sense, of human existence stand as if carved in stone.«
Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»Margit Schreiner embraces literature’s privilege of subjectivity, the radical focusing on one phenomenon. She succeeds with her sharp analytical mind and admirable stylistic competence.«
Oberösterreicher Nachrichten

»Charting the phenomenon of ageing (...), those ever-disintegrating threads that anchor us in the here and now. A work of singular denseness, penned in a remorseless, yet humorous tone.«
Die Furche

»This book is a source of wisdom, entertaining as well as thought-provoking, teaching us one important lesson: ‚Everything leaves its marks, especially life itself’.«
ex libris

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