Wolf Wondratschek, born 1943 in Rudolfstadt, studied literature and philosophy in Heidelberg, Göttingen, and Frankfurt. His first book, When the Day Still Started with a Bullet Wound, is legendary in the German-language world, initiating a one-man Beat Generation, and ensuring that he became one of Germany's most successful contemporary writers. His vast body of work comprises novels, collections of poems, short stories, essays, reportage, and radio plays. He lives in Vienna.
"[Self-Portrait with Russian Piano] is at once egoless, sly,
profound, funny, authentic and utterly mysterious--without ever
seeming to break a sweat . . . An immense humility encompasses the
novel. In a world that shouts, this book is a song played softly,
and slowly."
--Ethan Hawke, The New York Times Book Review "A tender character
study of a wry and jaundiced former piano virtuoso . . .
[Wondratschek] writes about music with intimacy and tenderness, and
peppers his narrative with delightful anecdotes of the foibles of
high-art celebrities. [His] deeply felt meditation on the joys and
sorrows of a life in music delivers the goods."
--Publishers Weekly "Wondratschek's layered narrative reflects on
language, art, politics, and history, and though nothing much
happens in it, there is plenty to think about . . . Readers with a
bent for Thomas Mann and Elias Canetti will find this book a
pleasure." --Kirkus "In Self-Portrait with Russian Piano, Wolf
Wondratschek renders the experience of being in the world during
the last seventy years as a prose sonata of beguiling intricacies
and beatitudes, a strong sense of wreckage paired with the sublime
consolations of music, art, sex, and intelligence. An autumnal
and--in the sense of the long view--droll story told in scratches
and claw marks, that speaks of today as if it were posthumous."
--Gary Indiana, author of Horse Crazy and I Can Give You Anything
But Love Praise for Wolf Wondratschek
"Wondratschek is eccentric, monomaniacal, romantic--his texts are
imbued with a wonderful, reckless nonchalance. A romantic in a
madhouse. To let Wondratschek's voice be drowned in the babble of
today's literature would be a colossal mistake."
--Patrick Süskind, author of Perfume
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