Erich Hackl Book order

As German Jews, Regina Steinig and her daughter Lucia are forced into hiding during the Second World War. Finding refuge in the workshop of a local beltmaker, they hold on to each other as they live in constant fear of discovery by his neighbors and customers. When their hideaway is damaged in an air raid in the closing months of the war, the women are forced on the run and are locked in a desperate battle for survival. Based on a true story, On the Rope is an account of extreme courage in the face of danger, violence, and hatred. Exploring themes of displacement and survival, friendship and family, it ends with the women’s efforts to bring recognition the selfless heroism of those who faced tremendous personal risk in order to protect them. A novella by one of Europe’s most prominent literary novelists, On the Rope layers deeply personal stories in a grounded historical account of life before, during, and after the Second World War. It paints a vivid picture of the hardships forced upon people by conflict and separation, depicting the forming and unravelling of relationships as a fact of life.

Mendoza - a conservative provincial town in Argentina at the foot of the Andes. April 8, 1977 - the last day that Gisela Tenenbaum was seen alive. How does a family come to terms with the fact that their twenty-two-year-old daughter disappeared so many years ago? Was she kidnapped, tortured, murdered? How have her friends and companions fared? Gisi is gone and yet still present. Argentina's Angel tells the story of her family - Austrians of Jewish origin who fled to Argentina in 1939 -, of her committed struggle against injustice, and of her desperate, underground work for a cause that would ultimately be lost. Born in Steyr, Austria, in 1954, Erich Hackl is a prolific writer whose nonfiction novels elucidate issues of social injustice. He resides in Vienna and Madrid. Edward Larkin is a professor of German and the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire. Thomas Ahrens is a teacher, translator, and artist who works in international education at Berea College, Kentucky.

Rudi Friemel fights for the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. When the Republican Front collapses, he is interned in France. In 1941, the German prisoners are offered the choice of repatriation, which Rudi agrees to. He and Marga are briefly re-united, and a child is conceived, before he is taken to a Gestapo prison in Vienna.

This novel reconstructs an actual murder case which took place in Spain in 1933, when Aurora Rodriguez felt compelled to kill her daughter. The child was reared to be a trail-blazer for her time, breaking all the conventions which her mother hated, but when she reached 18, her mother, "after careful consideration" shot her. Erich Hackl was winner of the 1987 Aspekte Literatur Preis in Germany with this novel.