What is authentic? | Day 3

Rebekka Zeinzinger and Irene Zanol from the literature podcast ‘Auf Buchfühlung’ report daily on the European Literature Days.

What is authentic? | Day 3

Saturday, 22 November 2025

11:00 a.m., Queer, fluid, posthuman. Elisabeth Klar and Kes Otter Lieffe in conversation with Irene Zanol and Rebekka Zeinzinger

‘Queer, fluid, posthuman’ – this is the title of the first event of the morning and these are also the characters that populate Elisabeth Klar's novel Es gibt uns (There is us), published by Residenz Verlag in 2023. In her ‘posthumanist utopian novel’, species have disappeared and others have emerged – hybrid beings that blur biological boundaries. The author says that it was not difficult for her to abandon the concept of ‘human’ in the writing process, and it was also clear to her from the outset that she did not want to limit herself to two pronouns that assert a binary gender system that has long since become scientifically untenable. In conversation, Klar described her engagement with Donna Haraway's feminist concept of the ‘kinship of species in the Chthulucene’ and her attempt to translate this concept into literature. The author provided information about researched ‘real’ facts that were incorporated into the novel, such as the function of anemones, which indicate radioactivity in the irradiated city of Anemos, or the slime that would emerge victorious when complex life was in decline, as well as the importance of theatre and stories for the community in Anemos. With her novel, Elisabeth Klar presents a story that responds to changes in society – to queerness, fluidity, posthumanism – and can certainly be understood as a contribution to negotiating new, changed rules of coexistence.

Kes Otter Lieffe's novel Von wo wir kommen (Where We Come From) is set somewhere in Europe in the year 2040. After the collapse of the economy and the banishment of all marginalised people from the city, these people have settled outside the city walls, in what remains of the forest after the climate catastrophe, in communities but also somewhat apart from it, like Ash and Pinar, the main characters of this novel, former leaders of the so-called Femme Riots of the 2020s, who now, in their old age, are once again becoming resistance fighters, because the lives of the discriminated in and outside the city are once again under threat. In view of increasingly authoritarian tendencies globally and a noticeable backlash against minorities, the novel not only describes a thoroughly realistic scenario that focuses on trans queer realities of life, but also tells an extremely exciting story about community, resistance, nature and, yes, even time travel. According to Kes Otter Lieffe, trans people are, in a sense, always time travellers themselves, as their lives can be divided into a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. The central role that nature plays in the novel becomes clear at the latest in the discussions of queer ecology, which sees humans as inseparably connected to their environment. There are many points of connection to Elisabeth Klar's novel.

12.20 p.m., Nerds, non-white, non-male. Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner in conversation with Irene Zanol and Rebekka Zeinzinger 

Joining us from Hamburg in the Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche is interdisciplinary artist, author, editor and translator Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner, who in Nerd Girl Magic explores nerd and geek culture from a non-white, non-male perspective and – drawing on personal experiences since childhood discusses nerdy coming-of-age as a potential for social resistance and change. She talks about the image of the nerd, which has changed over time, and about nerd culture as a (queer) place of refuge, which also ties in with the first discussions of the day. She explains how reality, ‘real’ life, affects the gaming scene using the phenomenon of #GamerGate, the effort by exclusively male nerds to exclude non-male, non-white gamers from the scene, which is linked to incels and conspiracy theories such as QAnon. She concludes her reading from the book, published in 2025 by Verbrecher Verlag, with the words ‘I am your revolution, baby. I'm a nerd girl’.

2 p.m., Japanese tea ceremony. Host: Christoph Peters, Moderator: Judith Hoffmann

While the hustle and bustle of Krems remains visible through the large glass façade of the Lower Austria State Gallery, inside it is completely quiet. With a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, writer and artist Christoph Peters, together with Judith Hoffmann, takes us on a journey to an ancient ritual – 25 minutes in silence.

In the ensuing conversation, he talks about the ritual and the philosophy behind it, as well as his journey to mastering it. Practising all the coordinated movements and achieving the ideal state of ‘concentration in the semi-blur of the gaze’ takes a very long time. According to Peters, the Way of Tea is a lifelong practice that can never be fully mastered. Once the desired state of ‘unfocused concentration’ is achieved, a state of inner peace sets in that extends to other areas of life. In conversation with Judith Hoffmann, the writer explains after a short reading from his book Diese wunderbare Bitterkeit. Leben mit Tee (This Wonderful Bitterness: Living with Tea), that all class distinctions are abolished in the tea ceremony, which is very special in an extremely hierarchical society such as Japan's: ‘In the tea room, everyone is equal.’

5.30 p.m., Fabulous Reality. Pajtim Statovci in conversation with Rosie Goldsmith

The encounter between a migrant from Kosovo and a homophobic, racist cat in a gay bar in Finland – this is the central theme of Pajtim Statovci's award-winning novel My Cat Yugoslavia (translated from Finnish into German by Stefan Moster). It is a surreal story with a great deal of magical realism, which the multilingual author presents and discusses with Rosie Goldsmith. But what is this surreal cat relationship all about? It reflects much of what happens to a gay, migrant, Muslim and thus multiple-discriminated person like him in a society such as Finland's. For the protagonist Bekim, receiving affection and love from a creature as manipulative as a cat seems particularly desirable, but he must first fight for it and prove himself worthy – similar to the recognition he seeks from mainstream society.

The author recounts how books in his childhood meant freedom for him, allowing him to leave the real world and escape into the imaginary. As a refugee child from Kosovo, he suffered from a ‘curse of low expectations’ imposed on him by teachers and others. This shows that the privileges granted to someone always depend on the associations people have with their origin, ethnicity, religion, skin colour, etc. He dealt with this topic in particular in his novel Crossing, namely that many people are ashamed of their ethnicity because of the stereotypes applied to them. Rosie Goldsmith asks whether he would ever write a book set ‘purely in Finland’. He counters: Why shouldn't he write more books about queerness and the Balkans? A Finnish author is not normally asked whether he wants to continue writing books about heterosexual Finns. In his literature, he can write whatever he wants without being interrupted – he sees this as his calling as an author.

6.10 p.m., Fake Paintings. Clare Clark in conversation with Rosie Goldsmith

The following conversation with British author Clare Clark focuses on Vincent Van Gogh, Berlin in the 1920s, the art trade and art forgery. The novel, one of several historical novels penned by Clark, is based on a true case of art forgery and, according to Rosie Goldsmith, seems as if it were written specifically for this year's festival theme. The gaps in the traditional narrative inspired the author to expand it into a fictional story that follows several protagonists in Berlin in 1925. Germany perceived the First World War as a great injustice – in this context, Vincent Van Gogh was stylised as an artist who had never been recognised during his lifetime, but whose time had now come. A messiah figure, so to speak, who fell on fertile ground in the German psyche. His biography was thus ‘invented’ even before his paintings arrived in Germany.

Van Gogh himself was one of the first to thin k about the idea of authenticity in a new way: authenticity had more to do with a feeling than with something determined by the environment. So the ‘authentic’ actually lies in subjective perception. 

Ultimately, it is a book about how genuine and authentic we all are. In the 1920s, inflation meant that even the authenticity of money was called into question. Berlin was suddenly awash with money during this period – and art was assigned a different monetary value, according to Clark, who then read from the novel Im gleißenden Licht der Sonne (In the Glittering Light of the Sun), translated from English by Bernhard Jendricke and Christa Prummer-Lehmair.

8 p.m., Words and Sounds II: Hanna Bervoets, Gabriela Wiener and ARK

“Hardly anyone is as driven by curiosity and a thirst for discovery as the trio ARK,” said presenter Judith Hoffmann as she introduced musicians Mona Matbou Riahi, Miriam Adefris and Lukas Kranzelbinder, who immediately immersed themselves in a musical dialogue that filled the Minorite Church.

In her novel Dieser Beitrag wurde entfernt (This post has been removed), published in German translation by Rainer Kersten in 2022, Dutch author Hanna Bervoets takes readers inside a media corporation where content moderator Kayleigh reviews social media posts under intense time pressure. In conversation, the author explains that her initial interest in the subject was the sensationalism that people displayed towards content moderators. Because they would always ask first: What did you see? and not: How are you coping with it? She did a lot of research for her novel and repeatedly encountered the trauma experienced by people who work in this profession and who have to come up with coping strategies in order to be able to do their job on a daily basis.

Bervoets also describes her own work experiences in this area. She felt reduced to a machine and constantly asked herself: What is ‘normal’? And who decides what is “normal”? It was a balancing act to decide what violence to describe in the novel, which is titled ‘What We Saw’ in the original language Dutch, and what was better left unsaid. The author also touches on the question of who determines what can be shown, noting that Meta operates from a male, white, Christian perspective. Until two years ago, the guidelines were primarily determined by what investors wanted, but since Donald Trump's second term in office, protection for vulnerable groups has completely fallen by the wayside under the guise of freedom of expression, causing moral values to shift further. In the reading by actress Michou Friesz, the audience is finally immersed in the novel.

In the second part of the evening, Judith Hoffmann joins Gabriela Wiener, a Peruvian author who now lives in Madrid, and her novel Unentdeckt (Undiscovered) to search for clues in her family history. Wiener's great-great-grandfather was Charles Wiener, who looted pre-Columbian grave goods in the 19th century and brought them to Europe. In her autofictional novel, she explores the question of why her family was so proud of this European explorer, whose portrait hung in their living room – a patriarch who bore an uncanny resemblance to Sigmund Freud. She questions whether he was an ‘explorer’ at all, because the term itself makes it clear that the ‘discovered’ countries and cultures were only new to Europeans. It should not be forgotten that Charles Wiener exhibited his exhibits at the World's Fair right next to a human zoo. At the time, many white people also believed that they were ‘saving’ indigenous children by taking them away from their parents and bringing them to Europe, where they could receive an education. This feeling of superiority still exists in many quarters today.

In Wiener's text, which is thoroughly permeated with irony and cynical humour, she debunks the myth of the great explorer and contrasts the family fiction with her own fiction, which is also informed by her own perspective as a migrant – a Latin American living in Europe. When asked whether the search for clues has also untangled a few knots, Wiener replies that the process of decolonisation is far from complete and that we are not yet at the end of this development. In the concluding passage read aloud, the first-person narrator strolls through a museum in Paris, which, like so many European museums, houses countless stolen works of art. ‘A beautiful museum, built on something very ugly.’