O-Töne: Birgit Birnbacher | Lisa Wölfl

Birgit Birnbacher “Sie wollen uns erzählen“
Oz is different; he has ADHD and struggles in school, but this time something really stupid has happened to him. On his way home, he therefore hopes for at least a minor disaster that would distract his mother from the letter from his teacher that he has to give her. When Oz gets home, Ann—who also has a frayed nerve—isn’t in a celebratory mood about his report card, as he’d expected; instead, something has actually happened. Zilly Grandma, who lives in the mountains, is gone… With intensity, humor, and great empathy, Birgit Birnbacher tells the story of a mother’s love—a mother who struggles with herself and against others to defend her child against external labels—even if it ultimately means through storytelling itself. A novel about the opportunities opened up by unbridled thinking. Do those who cannot conform perhaps actually have something to offer in the face of our overstimulated nature and environment?

Lisa Wölfl “Ein verlassenes Haus“
Politicians on TV talk about the lazy poor who simply don’t want to work anymore. Meanwhile, Sonja’s husband toils as a temp on a construction site, and she sells expensive teas at an organic shop. Sonja watches as her life closes in on her. Between the household, her job, the children, and her husband, there is hardly anything left of her. When she loses her job as well, she slides into a crisis. Then Sonja finds a job she can do from home without any prior experience: chatting with unsuspecting men on a dating platform as a beautiful, young student. As Sonja slowly begins to feel herself again and gains self-confidence with the help of her fake profile, her family falls apart. She distances herself from her husband and the children and grows closer to a user who might be her way out. A gripping debut novel about self-sacrifice, longing, female invisibility—and the dangerous hope that a better life awaits somewhere out there.