Vladimir Vertlib: Mirror in a foreign word

Vladimir Vertlib

Mirror in the foreign word. The invention of life as literature.

With an afterword by Walter Schmitz and Annette Teufel and a bibliography.

In January 2006, Vladimir Vertlib gave an insight into the conditions and prerequisites of his writing as part of the 5th Dresden Chamisso Poetics Lectureship. Using examples from his texts, Vertlib spoke about the role of the writer in our time, about his writing between languages and about the tense relationship between literariness and authenticity in every form of literature: "Even an autobiography that explicitly identifies itself as such is a fiction, because through the tricks that memory plays on us, through omissions and interpretations, our own lives are subsequently 'reinvented'."

Vladimir Vertlib, born in Leningrad (USSR) in 1966, emigrated to Israel with his parents in 1971. For more than ten years, the family searched for a home between Israel, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and the USA. Vertlib has lived in Austria since 1981, currently in Salzburg. He studied economics in Vienna and has been working as a freelance writer and translator since 1993. In 2001, he was awarded the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize.

Works (selection):
Abschiebung. Erzählung (1995)
Zwischenstationen. Roman (1999)
Das besondere Gedächtnis der Rosa Masur. Roman (2001)
Letzter Wunsch. Roman (2003)
Mein erster Mörder. Lebensgeschichten (2006)