Man wird ja praktisch immer missverstanden.
Taking a decidedly sober and unadorned approach, this writer’s style embellishes nothing and, without literary elegance or false pretension, follows people into their emotional cul-de-sacs. Bernhard Strobel’s narratives depict people in crises, tense atmospheres in the family, among friends or neighbours. We read dialogues on the verge of conflict, oscillating between belligerence and tight-lippedness.
Bernhard Strobel was born in Vienna in 1982, lives in Northern Burgenland. He reads Scandinavian studies, translates from Norwegian to German (e.g. Tor Ulven, Dunkelheit am Ende des Tunnels, Das allgemein Unmenschliche, Ablösung) and has been awarded numerous prizes, such as the State Scholarship for Literature in 2007 and the Burgenland Literature Prize in 2003 and 2017. Nichts, nichts (Nothing, nothing) was shortlisted for the Bremer Literaturpreis 2010. In 2014, Strobel won the promotion prize by the city of Vienna, 2016 the Theodor Kery Prize, the Outstanding Artist Award in 2019, and the Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation in 2021.
