Last Living Words: The Ingeborg Bachmann Reader

This Ingeborg Bachmann Reader consists of works of poetry and fiction published during the life of the great Austrian writer. Brilliantly translated by Lilian M. Friedberg, Last Living Words presents a new perspective on this important, internationally renowned figure. Friedberg's Bachmann is no longer the frail and tortured writer presented in so many previous translations, but is a writer who stands as a strong woman and major literary figure.

Born in Klagenfurt, Austria on June 25, 1926, Ingeborg Bachmann studied law and philosophy at the universities of Insbruck, Graz, and Vienna. She received her degree, writing a dissertation on Heidegger, from the University of Vienna in 1950. After graduating she became a scriptwriter at Radio Rot-Weis-Rot in Vienna, and in 1953 won the Gruppe 47 Prize for her first collection of poems Die gestundete Zeit (The Mortgage on Borrowed Time).

Over the next many years, she produced numerous collections of poetry, fiction, and radio plays, including Anrufung des Großen Bären (Invocation of the Great Bear) [poetry], the collections of stories Das dreißigse Jahr (The Thirtieth Year) and Simultan, and the novel Malina.