Reading & Talk: Michael Köhlmeier - Die Verdorbenen

Moderation: Caroline Grafe, LIT.Quartier

What arises from love, obsession and guilt? Michael Köhlmeier's new novel - a masterful exploration of evil

In the early seventies, Johann comes to the city to study, his head full of confused dreams. He meets Christiane and Tommi, who are a couple and take him into their midst. Together they explore the light and dark sides of love, trapped in a triangle that becomes ever tighter.
When Johann was a child, his father asked him if he had one wish in life. And Johann didn't dare answer: 'Once in my life I would like to kill a man. Michael Köhlmeier's fascinating novel tells of the wrong life in the right one. Of past guilt and lifelong innocence. 'Die Verdorbenen' leaves no one indifferent.

Michael Köhlmeier lives in Hohenems/Vorarlberg and Vienna. He writes novels, short stories, radio plays and songs and performs very successfully as a narrator of ancient and local legends and biblical stories. He has received numerous awards for his books, including the Johann Peter Hebel Prize, the Manès Sperber Prize, the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art I Class, most recently the Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize for his complete works and the Ferdinand Berger Prize for his political commitment.