Fiction

All countries Afghanistan Albania Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Bhutan Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Cabo Verde Canada Central African Republic Chile China Congo, Democratic Republic Croatia Cuba Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt Fiji Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lebanon Libya Malaysia Mexico Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Senegal Singapore Slovenia Somalia South Korea Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Türkiye Turkmenistan Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uzbekistan Yemen Zambia
Newest first Oldest first
1
Old Masters: A Comedy
Old Masters: A Comedy
Thomas Bernhard
For more than thirty years, music critic Reger has returned to the same bench in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum to contemplate a painting by Tintoretto. But he is not there simply to admire art: he studies masterpieces in search of their imperfections, convinced that nothing created by human hands can be truly flawless. Through his friend Atzbacher, we encounter Reger’s fiercely critical mind, his grief over the death of his wife, and his contempt for the hypocrisies of Austrian society. Over the course of a single day, art becomes the starting point for a merciless examination of culture, philosophy, nationalism, and the absurdities of human existence. Darkly comic and deliberately provocative, Bernhard’s novel challenges the reverence we attach to great artists and celebrated institutions, suggesting that sometimes the only honest response to perfection is to question it.
Austria 1985
2
The Loft
The Loft
Marlen Haushofer
In The Loft, an Austrian housewife finds refuge from her monotonous domestic life in an attic where she draws birds, insects and other creatures. Her marriage to Hubert, a dissatisfied lawyer, has settled into emotional distance, while her grown-up children have left home. Although her days appear ordinary, the narrator carries memories of a disturbing episode from twenty years earlier, when a sudden loss of hearing led her husband to send her to a remote cottage to recover. One day, mysterious packages arrive containing extracts from her old diary, forcing her to confront an experience she has tried to forget. As the past intrudes upon her carefully ordered present, the boundaries between memory, repression and self-understanding begin to shift. With quiet psychological intensity, Haushofer examines the loneliness hidden within conventional family life, the constraints placed on women, and the private spaces people create to preserve their individuality. The attic becomes both a sanctuary and a symbol of the narrator’s struggle to understand herself beyond the roles imposed upon her.
Austria 2011
3
The Last Movement
The Last Movement
Robert Seethaler
In the spring of 1911, the celebrated composer and conductor Gustav Mahler boards a ship in New York, beginning his final journey back to Europe. Gravely ill and aware that his life is drawing to a close, he spends much of the voyage wrapped in blankets on deck, watching the vast ocean and revisiting memories of the past. His thoughts move between the musical triumphs that made him famous, the summers he spent in the mountains, the devastating death of his young daughter Maria, and his complicated relationship with his wife, Alma. Once the great love of his life, Alma has fallen for the young architect Walter Gropius, leaving Mahler struggling with jealousy, regret, and the painful realisation that love cannot be commanded. Through fleeting memories and quiet moments of reflection, Robert Seethaler creates an intimate portrait of a brilliant artist confronting mortality. Poignant and restrained, the novel meditates on love, loss, artistic ambition, and what remains when a life approaches its final note.
Austria 2026