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My Favourite Animal Is Called Winter

Sample Translations English
  • Winner of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
  • Nominated for the German Book Prize 2021
  • Shortlisted for the Austrian Book Prize 2021
  • Ferdinand Schmalz is a celebrated playwright who has had world premieres in Vienna, Zürich and Berlin
  • English sample translation available

The debut novel of the Bachmann Prize recipient Ferdinand Schmalz

The Viennese frozen food supplier Franz Schlicht is to fulfill a macabre wish. His client Dr. Schauer has resolved to lie down in a deep freezer to die. He tasks Franz Schlicht with transporting his frozen body to a glade. At the agreed time, however, the freezer is empty, and Schlicht embarks on a highly unusual search for the corpse during which he meets the crime scene cleaner Schimmelteufel, an engineer, who has walled himself in, and a ministerial official who collects Nazi Christmas decorations. In 'My Favourite Animal Is Winter', Ferdinand Schmalz takes us on an precipitous tour through Austrian society, which is whimsical, intelligent and full of wit.

'Schmalz not only has a good feel for the alleged fringe places and characters, but also for the spaces that contain the secrets.' Sandra Kegel

A virtuosic novel that sounds like a song. ― Der Spiegel 

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Sample Translations
  • Publisher: S. FISCHER
  • Release: 21.07.2021
  • 192 pages
  • Format: Hardcover
Cover Download Mein Lieblingstier heißt Winter
Mein Lieblingstier heißt Winter
Apollonia T. Bitzan

Ferdinand Schmalz

Ferdinand Schmalz received the Retz- hof Drama Prize already for his first play am beispiel der butter in 2013 and was chosen as Young Playwright of the Year. His most recent play, jedermann (stirbt), premiered at the Burgtheater and received the Nestroy Theatre Prize. In 2017, he participated in the Festival of German-speaking Literature and won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize with an extract from My Favourite Animal is Called Winter. He lives in Vienna.