» What Are We Going to Do With Our Lives?«

Correspondence
Edited by Renate Langer. With a foreword by Hans Höller.
Suhrkamp | Insel

» What Are We Going to Do With Our Lives?« / Salzburger Bachmann Edition
Correspondence
Edited by Renate Langer. With a foreword by Hans Höller.
A young poet, who presented her work to the Gruppe 47 for the first time in 1952, and a man nine years her senior, already an established writer. In their letters, Ingeborg Bachmann and Heinrich Böll talk about politics and literature, religion and travel, and time ang again, about the material prerequisites of writing: money and a roof over their heads. Over many years, they read each other’s works – »Please send me what you’re writing, as a remedy against separation and isolation.« Despite...
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A young poet, who presented her work to the Gruppe 47 for the first time in 1952, and a man nine years her senior, already an established writer. In their letters, Ingeborg Bachmann and Heinrich Böll talk about politics and literature, religion and travel, and time ang again, about the material prerequisites of writing: money and a roof over their heads. Over many years, they read each other’s works – »Please send me what you’re writing, as a remedy against separation and isolation.« Despite their different ways of life, they had a great deal in common. Both of them dreamt of constancy and security, but they were also both enticed by a life outside of their own linguistic realm and literary tradition. Böll heads to Ireland, Bachmann to Italy. And they both had to struggle with their own demons, with success accompanied by exhaustion, addiction, and depression.

Ingeborg Bachmann and Heinrich Böll’s two decades of correspondence offers fascinating perspectives on the first decades of postwar literary life in the German-speaking world, and profound insights into the artistic and personal development of two of the key voices of that era. But more than anything else, this collection reveals that the two figures were much closer to one another than was previously known.
2025, 487 pages
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Ingeborg Bachmann was born on June 25, 1926 in Klagenfurt. She first rose to prominence as a poet after reading her work at a gathering of the legendary Gruppe 47. She went on to publish two collections of poetry, Die gestundete Zeit (1953) and Anrufung des Großen Bären (1956), along with numerous radio plays, essays, and short story collections. In 1971, she published her only completed novel, Malina. Bachmann passed away on 17 October 1973 in Rome.
 

Ingeborg Bachmann was born on June 25, 1926 in Klagenfurt. She first rose to prominence as a poet after reading her work at a gathering of the...


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

»Senza casa«
Year of Publication: 2024
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2024
Autobiographical essays, a ›war diary‹ and previously unpublished autobiographical material, along with the ›Neapolitan Diary‹ from Bachmann’s heady days as a freelance writer. Gathered together for the first time in this new volume of the Salzburger Bachmann Edition, these texts offer new insights into the life of this remarkable author. Questioning and correcting stereotypical images of...
»We Didn’t Do Well« – The Bachmann Frisch Correspondence
Year of Publication: 2022
Ingeborg Bachmann, Max FrischYear of Publication: 2022

Spring 1958: Ingeborg Bachmann – celebrated poet, winner of Literary Prize of Gruppe 47 and cover star of Der Spiegel – is broadcasting the radio play Der gute Gott von...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), Italy (Feltrinelli)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (speak low)

Invocation of Ursa Major
Year of Publication: 2022
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2022

The verses in Ingeborg Bachmann’s second collection of poetry, Invocation of Ursa Major (1956), caused a sensation when they were published and soon became canonised: they were immensely...

Rights sold to:

Italy (Adelphi)

The Thirtieth Year
Year of Publication: 2020
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2020

In 1956, at 30 years of age, Ingeborg Bachman began with the first drafts for the book, which is now to published in the Salzburger Bachmann Edition. It would take five years until all seven stories had been submitted to Piper Verlag ready for publication in the spring of 1961 and the first volume could be published in July that same year.


Of the writing phase the...

»Write down everything that is true«
Year of Publication: 2018

The hitherto unpublished and unknown correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Hans Magnus Enzensberger allows one to relive how, after the Second World War, two of the most prominent writers in the German language chose to depict and regard the world, literature and the publishing industry, but also how they wished to present and be regarded themselves.


One was...

Male Oscuro
Year of Publication: 2017
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2017

Ingeborg Bachmann’s dream notes, correspondence drafts and records from the time of her illness are of great literary interest as the primary elements of the subsequent Todesarten-texts. In addition, these writings are apt to further our knowledge about her illness and the phenomenon of illness itself. They are outrageous, courageous in their analytic approach, defeated...

The Book Goldmann
Year of Publication: 2017
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2017

The Book Goldmann is the name Ingeborg Bachmann gave to her great narrative project, which she cherished until the end. This edition renders the previously only fragmentarily...

Rights sold to:

Turkey (Can)
 

The Radio Familiy
Year of Publication: 2011
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2011
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...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), Turkey (Can)

War Diary
Year of Publication: 2010
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 2010
The present volume for the first time compiles the war diary Ingeborg Bachmann kept from late summer 1944 to June 1945, as well as the surviving letters from Jack Hamesh – a unique document...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), France (Actes Sud), Italy (Adelphi), Poland (Czarne), Denmark (Grif), Czech Republic (Pulchra), Ukraine (Osnovy), Israel (Hakkibutz Hameuchad – Sifriyat Poalim)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Akal)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Audiobuch)

Herzzeit – The Bachmann–Celan Correspondence
Year of Publication: 2008
Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul CelanYear of Publication: 2008
»Books of this stature appear only every few decades.« Deutschlandradio


The correspondence from the period 1948-61 – a last letter penned by Celan...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (Seagull), Portuguese rights (Antígona), Chinese simplex rights (China Renmin UP), Russia (Ad marginem), France (Seuil), Italy (Nottetempo), Netherlands (Meulenhoff), Denmark (Vandkunsten), Sweden (Ellerströms), Japan (Seidosha), Poland (A5), Czech Republic (Pulchra), Bulgaria (Panorama), Romania (Art), Turkey (Kirmizi Kedi), Ukraine (Knihy XXI), Georgia (Ibis)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Fondo Cultura), Croatia (OceanMore)

Malina
Year of Publication: 1971
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 1971

In Malina, originally published in German in 1971, Ingeborg Bachmann invites the reader into a world stretched to the very limits of language. An unnamed narrator, a writer in Vienna, is...

Rights sold to:

USA & Canada (New Directions), UK & Commonwealth (Penguin), Russia (AST), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Estaçao Liberdade), Portuguese rights (Antígona), France (Seuil), Italy (Adelphi), Netherlands (Koppernik), Denmark (Grif), Sweden (Ellerströms), Korea (Minumsa), Japan (Chikuma Shobo), Czech Republic (Opus), Serbia (Kontrast), Turkey (Yapi Kredi), Greece (Potlatch), Albania (Aleph), Ukraine (Fabula), Georgia (Palitra L), Armenia (Antares), Azerbaijan (Alatoran)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Akal), Catalan rights (Edicions 62), Norway (Bokvennen), Finland (Weilin & Göös), Poland (A5, Polish audio book: Mala Litera), Slovakia (Slovensky Spisovatel), Hungary (Jelenkor), Bulgaria (Na Otetschestwenia Front), Romania (Humanitas), Lithuania (Lithuanian Writers Union), Slovenia (Pomuska Zalozba), Macedonia (Tri), Israel (Hakibutz Hameuchad / Sifriat Poalim)

Domestic Rights Sales: German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg), German Audiobook (DAV), German Radio Play (HR2)

Deferred Time
Year of Publication: 1953
Ingeborg BachmannYear of Publication: 1953

For the young Ingeborg Bachmann and her generation, the great hope after the war soon proved deceptive. The themes in Bachmann's first volume of poetry, Deferred Time (1953), are representative of the experience that defines writing after 1945: Departure and farewell, guilt and memory. In the dramatic gestures and memorable images of her poetic language, this experience found a...