Between the Danube and the Sea: Claudio Magris' Literary Journey
Summary:
Claudio Magris, a professor of German literature at the University of Trieste, will speak about his own journey as a writer in his many novels, essays, theater and literary criticism.
Description:
Claudio Magris, a native of Trieste, and a professor of German literature at the University of Trieste, has been profoundly influenced by his experience of a city where different cultures meet-- Italian, German and Slavic. In this lecture “From the Danube to the Sea,” he will explore the existential, political, and poetic issues that literature of the border and a border identity implies. He will speak about his own journey as a writer in his many novels, essays, theater and literary criticism including, in English translation, The Habsburg Myth in Modern Austrian Literature; Far from where; Danube, Microcosms, and, most recently, the novel, Blindly, in which the journey through Central Europe becomes a journey through life and history, through the Babel of the contemporary world, from the Danube to the Sea. His other novels treat the essential themes of the crisis of the self (Inferences from a Sabre; A different sea, as do many of his most famous theatre pieces and essays, The Voices; Clarisse’s Ring; Utopia and disenchantment.