Matinee zu Ehren von Dacia Maraini

This matinée includes the presentation of the Honorary Prize of the Austrian Book Trade for Tolerance in Thought and Action by President Benedikt Föger to the Italian writer Dacia Maraini. The Honorary Prize is the highest accolade awarded by the Austrian Book Trade.

Maike Albath gives a speech about the prizewinner, Katja Gasser leads a discussion with her, Otto Lechner plays the accordion.

***BIOGRAPHIES***

Dacia Maraini
b. 1936. The writer is – far beyond the literary scene – one of Italy’s most important voices as well as a feminist pioneer. She grew up in Japan and Sicily; as a child, because of her parents’ opposition to the Fascist regime, she was interned in a Japanese concentration camp and experienced starvation at an early age. She was among the first to write about violence against women; she was a founder of experimental theatre, travelling for film projects with P. P. Pasolini to Africa, and she wrote screenplays, among others, for Pasolini and Margarethe von Trotta. Recently published in German translation: Freche Mädels in Palermo (Raggazze di Palermo) and Die stumme Herzogin, 2026.

“Italy’s most prominent female writer.”
Die Welt

Maike Albath
b. 1966, writer and presenter for Deutschlandfunk radio. She is a distinguished expert on Italian contemporary culture.

Otto Lechner
is an Austrian accordion player and composer. His music is influenced by many genres, like jazz and world music. He loves to combine his music with literature and theatre.