Wespennest
Encyclopedia
The quarterly magazine Wespennest (literally translated "wasps nest") publishes texts and images by internationally renowned authors and artists as well as new literary talents. Besides presenting fosuces on specific countries, literature, art theory or politics, each issue offers interviews, polemics, book and theatre reviews and works of photography on 112 large-format pages.
, Gabriela Adameşteanu
, Gennadij Ajgi, Sadik Al-Azm
, Les Back, Lothar Baier, Colette Braeckman, Alida Bremer, Rudolf Burger, Mircea Cărtărescu
, Peter O. Chotje-witz, Inger Christensen
, György Dalos
, Jesús Díaz, Ulrike Draesner, Michail Eisenberg, Katarina Frostenson
, Arno Geiger
, Georgi Gospodinov, Sabine Gruber, Adolf Holl
, Nora Iuga, Jaan Kaplinski
, Sema Kaygusuz, Navid Kermani, Friederike Mayröcker
, Suketu Mehta, Dmi-trij Prigow, Elif Şafak
, Warlam Schalamow, Robert Schindel, Burghart Schmidt
, Olga Sedakova, Heinz Steinert, Ilija Trojanow
, Tomas Venclova
, Wolf Wondratschek
and others. Wespennest presents a dialogue forum for European literature that includes not only countries like Spain, the Netherlands, Greece and Scandinavia, but which also introduces and discusses first and foremost the literature of the Eastern European countries, from Slovenia in the south to Russia in the north.
The twenty-year-old writers Peter Henisch und Helmut Zenker initially founded Wespennest as a publication for their own texts, dissociated from the literary magazines Literatur und Kritik
, which they found «too virtuous», and Manuskripte, which they found «too avant-garde». After the founding authors resigned, the writers Gustav Ernst
and Franz Schuh
, among others, worked as editors and co-publishers of Wespennest for many years. In the mid-1980s, Josef Haslinger altered the concept of the quarterly magazine. In addition to German-language literature and essays, it began to publish regular translations of up-and-coming foreign authors who were still not well known in the German-speaking world. Thanks to collaboration with the European network of cultural journals Eurozine
, which Wespennest helped to found, there is now a lively exchange with intellectual publications in and beyond Europe.
Walter Famler, the magazine’s current publisher, expanded the magazine’s activities at the beginning of the 1990s to include book publishing, coming out with three to five books a year in the series Edition Literatur, Edition Essay and Edition Film. Originally founded as a lite-rary magazine, Wespennest is now recognised beyond the German-speaking world and has also opened itself up to the humanities and social sciences. Wespennest regularly publishes extensive, critical essays addressing topics of contemporary art and film, and also covering political and social events in and outside Austria.
The 100th issue of Wespennest, which appeared in September 1995, brought content and design changes once again. Stefan Fuhrer has been responsible for the new design since then, and articles appear under the heading «Wespennest Portraits» about personages such as Drago Jančar
, Dževad Karahasan, John Mateer
and Meg Stuart. A founding principle of these por-traits is the special connection between photographs and text.
, the poet Friederike Mayröcker
and the Art Brut artist Adolf Wölfli
.
Wespennest is now one of the «most innovative and at the same time most renowned literary magazines in the German-speaking realm and demonstrates international calibre four times a year». This was the jury’s explanation for awarding the magazine the V.O. Stomps Prize from the city of Mainz in 2003 «for outstanding achievements in small-scale publishing activities».
(reportage) and Andrea Zederbauer (coordination); Thomas Eder is in charge of the book review section. György Dalos
(Berlin), George Blecher (New York), Jyoti Mistry (Johannesburg) and Franz Schuh
(Vienna) are regular collaborators.
History
The magazine was founded in 1969 and originally developed from the Vienna 68er scene as a project by a group of authors. The Zeitgeist of the late 1960s helps to explain the title of the magazine, which devises an agenda that is still as timely as ever. In retrospect, the achievements of this project’s nearly 40-year existence can be summed up as follows: Wespennest has not only succeeded in transforming and updating the sociocritical demands of the founding era without selling out under the pressures of a changed market. Wespennest has become one of the leading publications of its kind in the field of literature and essays – and meanwhile appears in bookshops all over the German-speaking world thanks to a distribution agreement with the Munich-based publishing house C.H.Beck. It also provides a forum in terms of a literary community and a critical public to internationally known authors such as Friedrich AchleitnerFriedrich Achleitner
Friedrich Achleitner is an Austrian poet and architecture critic.Achleitner studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1950–1953. He joined the Wiener Gruppe in 1955, participated in their literary cabarets, and wrote dialect poems, montages, and concrete poems...
, Gabriela Adameşteanu
Gabriela Adamesteanu
Gabriela Adameșteanu is a Romanian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, and translator. The author of the celebrated novels The Equal Way of Every Day and Wasted Morning , she is also known as an activist in support of civil society and member of the Group for Social Dialogue , as...
, Gennadij Ajgi, Sadik Al-Azm
Sadik Al-Azm
Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm is a Professor Emeritus of Modern European Philosophy at the University of Damascus in Syria. He has been a visiting professor in the department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University until 2007...
, Les Back, Lothar Baier, Colette Braeckman, Alida Bremer, Rudolf Burger, Mircea Cărtărescu
Mircea Cartarescu
Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian poet, novelist and essayist.Born in Bucharest, he graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Letters, Department of Romanian Language And Literature, in 1980. Between 1980 and 1989 he worked as a Romanian language teacher, then he worked at the Writers'...
, Peter O. Chotje-witz, Inger Christensen
Inger Christensen
Inger Christensen was a Danish poet, novelist, essayist and editor considered the foremost Danish poetic experimentalist of her generation.-Life and work:...
, György Dalos
György Dalos
György Dalos is a Hungarian Jewish writer and historian. He is best known for his novel 1985, and The Guest from the Future: Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin.-Life:...
, Jesús Díaz, Ulrike Draesner, Michail Eisenberg, Katarina Frostenson
Katarina Frostenson
Katarina Frostenson is a Swedish poet and writer. She was elected a member of the Swedish Academy in 1992. In 2003, Frostenson was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in recognition of her services to literature....
, Arno Geiger
Arno Geiger
Arno Geiger is an Austrian novelist.Geiger grew up in the village of Wolfurt near Bregenz. He studied German studies, ancient history and comparative literature at the universities of Innsbruck and Vienna. He has worked as a freelance writer since 1993...
, Georgi Gospodinov, Sabine Gruber, Adolf Holl
Adolf Holl
Adolf Holl is an Austrian Catholic writer and theologian of international reputation. He lives in Vienna, where he was Chaplain of the University of Vienna and a lecturer in its Department of Catholic Theology. Because of conflicts with Church authorities, he was suspended from his teaching and...
, Nora Iuga, Jaan Kaplinski
Jaan Kaplinski
Jaan Kaplinski is an Estonian poet, philosopher, and culture critic. Kaplinski is known for his independent mind, focus on global issues and support for left-wing/liberal thinking...
, Sema Kaygusuz, Navid Kermani, Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker is an Austrian poet.- Life :From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early.She started writing as a 15 year old...
, Suketu Mehta, Dmi-trij Prigow, Elif Şafak
Elif Safak
Elif Şafak , is a Turkish writer who writes in both Turkish and English. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages.-Fiction:...
, Warlam Schalamow, Robert Schindel, Burghart Schmidt
Burghart Schmidt
Burghart Schmidt is a German philosopher. He is currently professor at Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.-Education:...
, Olga Sedakova, Heinz Steinert, Ilija Trojanow
Ilija Trojanow
thumb|Ilija Trojanow Ilija Trojanow , is a Bulgarian-German writer, translator and publisher.-Life:...
, Tomas Venclova
Tomas Venclova
Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian scholar, poet, author and translator of literature.Tomas Venclova is son of poet and Soviet politician Antanas Venclova. He was educated at Vilnius University. As an active participant in the dissident movement he was deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1977 and had...
, Wolf Wondratschek
Wolf Wondratschek
Wolf Wondratschek is a German author. He was born in Rudolstadt in Thuringia.-Life:Wondratschek grew up in Karlsruhe. From 1962 through 1967, he studied literature, philosophy and sociology at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, Georg-August University of Göttingen, and the Johann Wolfgang...
and others. Wespennest presents a dialogue forum for European literature that includes not only countries like Spain, the Netherlands, Greece and Scandinavia, but which also introduces and discusses first and foremost the literature of the Eastern European countries, from Slovenia in the south to Russia in the north.
The twenty-year-old writers Peter Henisch und Helmut Zenker initially founded Wespennest as a publication for their own texts, dissociated from the literary magazines Literatur und Kritik
Literatur und Kritik
The Austrian literary magazine Literatur und Kritik was founded in April 1966 by the Austrian writers Rudolf Henz, Gerhard Fritsch, and Paul Kruntorad as successor of the literary publication Wort in der Zeit, which had existed since 1955.-Profile:Compared to its predecessor, Literatur und Kritik...
, which they found «too virtuous», and Manuskripte, which they found «too avant-garde». After the founding authors resigned, the writers Gustav Ernst
Gustav Ernst
Gustav Ernst is an Austrian playwright, novelist and screenwriter. He has also founded and edited two literary journals, Wespennest and kolik....
and Franz Schuh
Franz Schuh
Franz Schuh may refer to:*Franz Schuh , Austrian writer*Franz Schuh , Austrian physician...
, among others, worked as editors and co-publishers of Wespennest for many years. In the mid-1980s, Josef Haslinger altered the concept of the quarterly magazine. In addition to German-language literature and essays, it began to publish regular translations of up-and-coming foreign authors who were still not well known in the German-speaking world. Thanks to collaboration with the European network of cultural journals Eurozine
Eurozine
Eurozine is a network of European cultural magazines based in Vienna, linking up more than 70 partner magazines and institutions from 34 European countries...
, which Wespennest helped to found, there is now a lively exchange with intellectual publications in and beyond Europe.
Walter Famler, the magazine’s current publisher, expanded the magazine’s activities at the beginning of the 1990s to include book publishing, coming out with three to five books a year in the series Edition Literatur, Edition Essay and Edition Film. Originally founded as a lite-rary magazine, Wespennest is now recognised beyond the German-speaking world and has also opened itself up to the humanities and social sciences. Wespennest regularly publishes extensive, critical essays addressing topics of contemporary art and film, and also covering political and social events in and outside Austria.
The 100th issue of Wespennest, which appeared in September 1995, brought content and design changes once again. Stefan Fuhrer has been responsible for the new design since then, and articles appear under the heading «Wespennest Portraits» about personages such as Drago Jančar
Drago Jancar
Drago Jančar is a Slovenian writer, playwright and essayist. Jančar is one of the most known contemporary Slovene writers. In Slovenia, he is also famous for his political commentaries and civic engagement.-Life:...
, Dževad Karahasan, John Mateer
John Mateer
-Early life and education:He was born in Roodepoort, South Africa in 1971, and grew up on the outskirts of Johannesburg. He spent some of his childhood in Canada, before returning to South Africa in 1979. In 1989 he moved to Australia with his family. He attended the International Writing Program...
and Meg Stuart. A founding principle of these por-traits is the special connection between photographs and text.
Award
Besides the four themed issues each year, special editions appear occasionally, such as those about the jazz composer Franz KoglmannFranz Koglmann
Franz Koglmann is an Austrian jazz composer. He performs on both the trumpet and flugelhorn in a variety of contexts, most often within avant-garde jazz and third stream contexts...
, the poet Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker
Friederike Mayröcker is an Austrian poet.- Life :From 1946 to 1969 Mayröcker was an English teacher at several public schools in Vienna. In 1969 she took a release from working as a teacher and in 1977 she retired early.She started writing as a 15 year old...
and the Art Brut artist Adolf Wölfli
Adolf Wölfli
Adolf Wölfli was a Swiss artist who was one of the first artists to be associated with the Art Brut or outsider art label.-Early life:...
.
Wespennest is now one of the «most innovative and at the same time most renowned literary magazines in the German-speaking realm and demonstrates international calibre four times a year». This was the jury’s explanation for awarding the magazine the V.O. Stomps Prize from the city of Mainz in 2003 «for outstanding achievements in small-scale publishing activities».
Editorial board
Walter Famler edits the magazine along with Erich Klein, Jan Koneffke (literature), Tanja Martini («überläufer»), Reinhard Öhner (photos), Ilija TrojanowIlija Trojanow
thumb|Ilija Trojanow Ilija Trojanow , is a Bulgarian-German writer, translator and publisher.-Life:...
(reportage) and Andrea Zederbauer (coordination); Thomas Eder is in charge of the book review section. György Dalos
György Dalos
György Dalos is a Hungarian Jewish writer and historian. He is best known for his novel 1985, and The Guest from the Future: Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin.-Life:...
(Berlin), George Blecher (New York), Jyoti Mistry (Johannesburg) and Franz Schuh
Franz Schuh
Franz Schuh may refer to:*Franz Schuh , Austrian writer*Franz Schuh , Austrian physician...
(Vienna) are regular collaborators.