Robert Menasse [Austria]
Robert Menasse was born in Vienna in 1954. He studied German, philosophy and political science in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina and completed his doctorate in 1980
Sinnliche Gewißheit (1988; tr: Sensual certainty) was the first installment of his Trilogie der Entgeisterung (tr. Trilogy of the breakdown of spirit), followed by Selige Zeiten, brüchige Welt (1991, tr: Wings of Stone) and Schubumkehr (tr: Reverse Thrust) in 1995, and the postscript Phänomenologie der Entgeisterung (tr: Phenomenology of dismay). In 2001, he published Die Vertreibung aus der Hölle (tr: Banishment from Hell), a complex family novel that connects the life of a distant relative, Rabbi Samuel Menasse from Amsterdam, in the 17th century with a story from the 1960s and 70s. His novel Die Hauptstadt (2017, tr: The capital city) is set in the environment of EU institutions in Brussels and examines the tacit burial of the “epoch of shame”. His latest novel, Die Erweiterung (2023, tr: The Expansion) touches on politicians and civil servants, blood brothers and lovers who grapple with the question of Albania’s potential entry into the EU.
Menasse is known for being a combative essayist. His writings on cultural theory focus on questions relating to past and present Austrian history, the democratic deficits of the EU and future of Europe. Since 2011, Menasse has curated a writers-in-residence program at the one world foundation in Sri Lanka. He has received numerous awards, including the Marburg Literature Prize, the Lion Feuchtwanger Prize of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, the Erich Fried Prize, the Austrian Art Award for Literature and the Heinrich Mann Prize. He lives mostly in Vienna.