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Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Ludwig’s Room

Ludwig’s Room

When Kurt Weber inherits his great-uncle’s lakeside house, he finds traces of the dark secrets of his family’s past. The early inhabitants of the house haunt his dreams nightly. And one day a ghostlike woman appears before him, hiding herself in a room that had been kept locked throughout his childhood. Inside, Kurt finds a hidden stash of photographs, letters, and documents. As he deciphers them, he gradually understands the degree of complicity in wartime horrors by his family and among his neighbors.

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the entire village adheres to an old and widely understood agreement not to expose the many members in the community who had been involved with a nearby prison camp during World War II. This knowledge wraps the entire community—those involved, and those who know of the involvement—in inescapable guilt for generations. Translated from the original German by Tess Lewis, Ludwig’s Room is a story of love, betrayal, honor, and cowardice, as well as the burden of history and the moral demands of the present.

Author

Alois Hotschnig

Alois Hotschnig

Books

Ludwig's Room

Named the ‘best writer of his generation’ by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Alois Hotschnig was born in 1959 in Carinthia and lives in Innsbruck. His books, celebrated for their stylistic virtuosity and precision of observation, have won major Austrian and international prizes including the Federal Chancellery of Austria’s Literature Prize, the Italo Svevo Prize, the Erich Fried Prize, the Anton Wildgans Prize, the inaugural 2011 Gert Jonke Prize, and the ORF Radio Play of the Year Award, among others. These awards reflect Hotschnig’s mastery in examining universal concerns through the prism of an acute focus on the local.

Translator

Tess Lewis

Tess Lewis

Books

Ludwig's Room

Kruso

Tess Lewis is an essayist and translator from French and German. She has translated many books and numerous essays and articles from German and French. Her translations include works by Peter Handke, Pascal Bruckner, Julya Rabinowich, Lukas Bärfuss, Philippe Jaccottet, Melinda Nadj Abonji, Jean-Luc Benoziglio and Alois Hotschnig among others. She has also translated for authors of Seagull Book, serves as an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review and writes essays on European Literature for various literary journals and newspapers.

Published by

Seagull Books, 2014
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When Kurt Weber inherits his great-uncle’s lakeside house, he finds traces of the dark secrets of his family’s past. The early inhabitants of the house haunt his dreams nightly. And one day a ghostlike woman appears before him, hiding herself in a room that had been kept locked throughout his childhood. Inside, Kurt finds a hidden stash of photographs, letters, and documents. As he deciphers them, he gradually understands the degree of complicity in wartime horrors by his family and among his neighbors.

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the entire village adheres to an old and widely understood agreement not to expose the many members in the community who had been involved with a nearby prison camp during World War II. This knowledge wraps the entire community—those involved, and those who know of the involvement—in inescapable guilt for generations. Translated from the original German by Tess Lewis, Ludwig’s Room is a story of love, betrayal, honor, and cowardice, as well as the burden of history and the moral demands of the present.

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