A fragmented world. City & Country | Day 2

‘City and Country in the 21st Century’ - in the UK and beyond

Rosie Goldsmith and her guests Rowan Moore and Sarah Langford will take us to Great Britain on this first morning of the festival at 9.30 am - both in the city and in the countryside. The international nature of the European Literature Days thus also helps us to understand our own local situation, because much of what is said on the podium about London, Sussex or Cornwall can be applied to other European regions.

Sarah Langford grew up as the granddaughter of farmers in Hampshire. In 2017, she moved with her family from London to the Suffolk area with the plan to live there for six months and farm her relatives' fields, which ended up being over two years. After returning to the city, she dedicated her book to this time and, above all, to two opposing perspectives: That of the farmers, who have to produce as much food as possible in order to make a living at all - and, in contrast, the view of the city dwellers, who identify the farmers as the main culprits for the climate crisis. There has been an alienation between consumers and producers. Langford is therefore dedicated to trying to bring the two positions closer together again by providing knowledge about where our food comes from and who produces it.

Rowan Moore, who already provided exciting perspectives on the challenges in urban areas on the opening evening, is reporting today from a personal perspective: having grown up in Sussex, around 100 kilometres from London, he also knows rural areas from his own experience. His latest book ‘Property. A Myth That Builds The World’ (Faber & Faber, 2023) deals with home ownership and its socio-economic aspects. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher characterised the connection between property and democracy. She promoted the idea that everyone should own property - this would strengthen democracy because people would feel more directly responsible for the economy. Today, there is a huge gap between those who own property and those who do not. The non-owners are strongly influenced by this circumstance in their existence, but conversely, owning a property does not fulfil the promise of freedom and independence - a myth.

From the readings, especially from Sarah Langford's book ‘Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution’ (Viking, 2022), the importance of the work of farmers for us all emerges. A plea for more appreciation for those who create and preserve the basis of life for us all. Because, whether we realise it or not, Langford emphasises: ‘Everything is connected.’

Of burning fields and rubbish history

‘There is hardly anyone among writers in Austria’, Katja Gasser opens the reading and discussion with Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker, “who would be more predestined to take part in a festival on this key topic” than him, the author and farmer. His latest novel ‘Brennende Felder’ (S. Fischer, 2024), which is currently nominated for the Austrian Book Prize, is the conclusion of a trilogy in which the author focuses on the landscape of his Upper Austrian origins, to which he has returned, and the stories of three siblings.

Kaiser-Mühlecker wants to find sentences for what happens without language, he says at the beginning, referring back to a quote from Franz Tumler, and explains that it is the task of writers to write down, record and communicate the changes that are constantly happening - preferably with a neutral attitude. In a short, very impressive reading from ‘Brennende Felder’, he shows how he does this in the case of the changes in the Upper Austrian foothills of the Alps and using the example of the character Luisa, who lived in different places around the world before returning to the village.

When asked about the emancipation of his novel character Luisa, Kaiser-Mühlecker points out in the interview that Luisa's description of herself and others in the novel hardly match. The same applies to how people in villages and towns perceive themselves and how others perceive them. These different perceptions interest him as an author. The conversation revolves around the traditional images of agriculture, the economic and social pressure that farmers are under, the idealism and self-sacrifice without which agricultural work would have long since ceased to be possible, and towards the end turns to the tangible political. Katja Gasser suspects that the decline in agricultural businesses is accompanied by a loss of identity and power for farmers and asks whether the increasing shift to the right in rural areas is related to this. Kaiser-Mühlecker agrees and talks about his experiences as an organic farmer, who is part of a rural population whose majority is strongly right-wing, but has different convictions himself. It's a gauntlet, he concluded, ‘the best thing to do is talk to the neighbours about cars or about the children.’

The topic of the third talk on today's festival day, which moderator Klaus Taschwer describes as ‘not very appetising’ given the lunchtime, is nevertheless one that affects us all and to which we all contribute every day: waste. This is also the title of Roman Köster's most successful and multi-award-winning book to date, which he talks about in the Minoritenkirche sound room.

How does a historian come across this topic? Rather by chance, reports Köster, it was initially a single research project, which was followed by the decision never to deal with rubbish again. But then he received a request from a publishing house to write a world history of rubbish from the time of human settlement to the present day - and he couldn't resist. Now, 15 years later, Köster ‘no longer has a problem with the label “rubbish historian”.’

When asked how one can approach such a comprehensive, global topic, Köster replies that he was guided by the search for structural similarities. He roughly identified three ‘epochs of global waste history’. Pre-modern societies produced far less waste than we do today, but it still existed and had to be dealt with: the first landfill sites were created. Industrialisation and new forms of production and distribution were also accompanied by a massive structural increase in waste. After the Second World War, a new ‘waste age’ dawned, characterised by an exponential increase in waste. The main cause of this was food packaging, which still accounts for the majority of household waste today, partly due to the introduction of supermarkets and the rationalisation of sales.

In addition to the historical view of recycling, Köster's connections with diseases of civilisation are also fascinating: Whereas in the past people were primarily afraid of infections caused by bacteria and faeces (cholera etc.), after the Second World War the fear of cancer due to toxic ingredients in modern products dominated. When asked about the urban-rural issue, Köster points to the fact that epidemics in particular pose enormous challenges for cities. Urban hygiene is a keyword that has become increasingly important over the course of history.

Whether it is Köster's comments on the initially low social acceptance of ‘communal rubbish bins’ or the oceans as the ‘main global dumping ground’ for plastic waste - these are fascinating and extremely complex interrelationships that Roman Köster brings to the audience in an accessible and light-footed way. And in doing so, he also emphasises the urgency of the waste problem for the future.

‘Farewell, you grumpy, you happy city, farewell!’ 

In the afternoon, music journalist and Ö1 presenter Albert Hosp welcomes guests to the ‘outpost’ of the European Literature Days at Minoritenplatz. The tour begins by criss-crossing the old streets and alleyways of Stein up to the Frauenberg, then straight along the Danube. According to Hosp, he wanted to add the river, which has always connected these two areas, to the urban-rural dualism on the musical walk. He points out the long history of trade and its great importance for culture in Krems. Using examples of music and anecdotes from musical history - such as a journey by Mozart and his parents on the Danube from Mauthausen to Vienna in the 1760s with a stop at the then important Danube harbour of Stein - Hosp not only introduces guests to the history of Krems, but also to thoughts on the city, country and river and how they are processed in music. 

Shortly after the Friday bells ring from Mautern across the Danube, Schubert's song ‘Abschied’ from the Schwanengesang is heard - one of the composer's most cheerful songs, according to Hosp, although or precisely because it tells of leaving the city for the countryside: ‘Ade, Du muntre, Du fröhliche Stadt, Ade!’ is the motto for the walkers after a visit to the impressively well-preserved early Gothic Göttweigerhof Chapel. They were dismissed to Ernst Molden's ‘mia san da schdrom’ and accompanied by curator Gerda Ridler to the Landesgalerie Niederösterreich, just a few steps away.

The expansive installation ‘Hold me tightly lest I fall’ by Irish artist Claire Morgan is currently on display on the ground floor of the gallery (until March 2025). Colourful pieces of plastic, thistle seeds, feathers, organic relics and bird-like creatures prepared by the artist herself form a work of art that raises fundamental questions about the role of humans and their relationship with nature. Finally, from the terrace on the fourth floor of the Landesgalerie, we take a look at Göttweig Abbey on the opposite bank of the Danube - and thus back to the river and its unifying effect, which was already traced in the first part of the walk.

‘Landkrank’ - On the discomfort of the environment

The Danish sociologist Nikolaj Schultz, born in 1990, presents his groundbreaking book ‘Landkrank’ (Suhrkamp, 2024), which has already been translated many times. It is a fictionalised examination of the phenomenon of ‘eco anxiety’ - fears, depression and suffering in the face of the inevitable climate catastrophe. The title ‘Land Sickness’ refers to the feeling of seafarers who return to dry land after a long voyage, but for whom solid ground seems anything but stable. The author compares this to a multiple shake-up of human existence in recent years, when it has become increasingly clear: The world is increasingly turning against those who shaped it.

Even the form of the text is not so easy to summarise; it is neither pure theory nor exclusively fiction. Moderator Rosie Goldsmith states in the most positive sense that she has never read a book like this before. The subject matter itself, the climate crisis, is something that is difficult to grasp and therefore requires new ways of writing - the author argues in favour of bringing scientific writing closer to literary writing in order to make the complex emotions associated with it more directly tangible. Finding a language for this kind of depression is a prerequisite for being able to deal with it at all.

Climate change and how we deal with it also reveal a generational conflict. The ‘land sickness’ not only affects the younger generation, but also many older people who are struggling with the fact that their way of life, which they have always considered good, is ultimately leading to the destruction of the basis of life for future generations. According to Schultz, the first step in confronting this existential despair about the world is not to deny it, but to recognise it as such and give it a language. Individual responsibility cannot be separated from social responsibility - recognising it is necessary in order to be able to realign ourselves.

Ecology cannot be conceived without freedom - both individual and social. However, the concept of freedom needs to be rethought, namely not exclusively in relation to being human, but also in relation to nature. After all, what does freedom mean if we can no longer breathe, if the basic conditions of life are jeopardised? It seems difficult to give an optimistic outlook. Schultz sees little positive for the next 10 to 20 years, but there is hope that there will then be a better understanding of who we are as humanity and where we are going. Because this horizon of what a possible future could look like is still missing today.

After the interview, Walter Grond emphasises the great importance he personally attaches to this ‘key book of our present’. He sees it as radically positive, as well as an ‘attempt to find an existential language for the tipping point situation we find ourselves in’.

Literary and musical forays through the (sub)city

Walter Grond welcomes the audience to the first evening of the ‘Words and Sounds’ event series as part of the European Literature Days, which are curated in cooperation with Albert Hosp and the Glatt&Verkehrt festival. In addition to a discussion with the award-winning author and translator Anne Weber, led by translator and literary scholar Jürgen Ritte, and a reading by actress Maria Köstlinger, the programme includes music by the jazz trio von Riedler | Oberkanins | Raab.

Anne Weber has travelled from Paris, where she has lived for a long time and where her current novel, Bannmeilen (Matthes & Seitz, 2024), is set. The ‘novel in rambles’, as it is described in the subtitle, explores the banlieues of Paris. She chose the title Bannmeilen because, although this was originally the literal translation of the word ‘banlieue’, the meaning has changed. Today, ‘banlieue’ refers to the suburbs, while ‘ban mile’ refers to the immediate vicinity of government buildings and the like, in which assembly is prohibited. In this way, the title creates a distance, says Weber. This distance also exists between her and the first-person narrator, although equating the first-person narrator with the author, as Jürgen Ritte suggested, is not entirely wrong. However, ‘because you are no longer “I” when you write “I”,’ says Weber. In the book, too, it is not real, but fictionalised forays that she made with a friend through the suburbs, the ‘outside’, which in Paris are very strictly separated from the ‘inside’ of the city, and through which she tried to go as far as possible without reservation and with open eyes. Maria Köstlinger's readings from the novel give a flavour of what the first-person narrator discovered and experienced there.

Saxophonist and bass clarinettist Ilse Riedler, trumpeter Lorenz Raab and percussionist Ingrid Oberkanins will play their instruments to accompany the reading and discussion. The pieces of music are colourful and diverse - just like the banlieues described by Anne Weber. Asked by Ritte whether she expects to be questioned as an expert on banlieues in France after the publication of the French translation of the book, the author replies that Bannmeilen is ‘not an analytical, not an explanatory book’, ‘but a narrative and brooding one. I have no truths to proclaim about the banlieues; if I were asked to be an expert on the subject, I would refer to reporters.’ At the end of the evening, Anne Weber reads the conclusion of her novel, which ends with the realisation ‘that our forays do not end here, but that we are only at the beginning of our journey.’ The majority of the audience at the European Literature Days probably felt the same way after this inspiring and stimulating day in Krems.