In autumn of the year 1952, a »chain-smoking mermaid with angel’s hair who more whispered than spoke« entered the radio play department of the American occupied forces Rot-Weiß-Rot broadcasting station in Vienna.

Ingeborg Bachmann, as the young woman was called, was to distinguish the radio station’s entertainment line-up over the next two years and make the Floriani radio family the best known and loved programme during the post-war years.

They are middle-class, and they’re eccentric: the Florianis. Hans, the paterfamilias is respectable to the bone but perceives himself as an »odd character« in his family. His wife Vilma, who is »a little better than most«, sees no need to contradict her husband. She takes a much harder look at her brother-in-law Guido. He was a Nazi, but only in small time way, »just a chump who was a sucker for Hitler«. Week after week, they meet and negotiate the Cold War, denazification and the beginning of reconstruction with much wit and irony - and besides the big events, they also deal with the small ones in post-war Austria.

Selected Foreign Editions

English edition released by Seagull >>

Malina