Crime fiction in Austria, as in most European countries, is growing fast. In the early 1990s, there were just a handful of local crime writers: now there are close to 100. So how do Austrian writers promote themselves in a market dominated by books originating not only in the USA and the UK, but also from Italy, France, the Nordic countries, Spain etc, not to mention those from neighbouring Germany?
The uniquely Austrian solution is the annual Kriminacht (Mystery Night), a celebration of crime fiction in an unusual setting – the vibrant café culture of Vienna. The fifth consecutive festival, organised with the help of the Echo Medienhaus publishing group, is held this year on Monday October 19th. It is the largest so far, stretching across the city and into the suburbs.
But if you are thinking Costa Coffee, Caffé Nero or even your local greasy spoon, think again. Vienna's café culture dates from the late 17th century; its café's are venerable institutions where you can drink (not just coffee), eat, read a range of newspapers and socialise. Over the years they have catered to distinguished patrons such as Mozart and Mahler, Gustav Klimt, Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler and Leon Trotsky. Often renowned for their elaborate desserts such as Apfelstrudel and the superb Sachertorte (chocolate cake filled with apricot jam), the coffee menu alone will have you drooling. Choose from the Einspanner (with whipped cream), the Maria Theresia (same again but with orange liqueur), or the Eiskaffee (whipped cream and vanilla ice-cream) and many more. Starbucks (one of the sponsors) take note!
Thus, on the evening of October 19th Vienna's cafés will fill with an audience seeking not only gastronomic thrills but literary ones too. 40 plus writers will read at some of the most famous cafes in Vienna: Cafés Diglas, Hawelka, Sperl, Landtmann (Freud's favourite), Schwartzenberg, and so on. Pick up an event card at one of the participating venues.
Not just German-speaking writers either. Jason Starr will appear at the Café Museum, Martin Walker at the Café Hummel in Josefstadt. There are events on other venues too. The best-selling Austrian writer Stefan Slupetzky will most probably fill the Kunstlerhaus cinema just off Karlsplatz, a venue for the Vienna international film festival in a few weeks time, whilst Marek Krajweski, the Polish creator of Kriminaldirektor Eberhard Mock, will read at the Polish Institute. Another undoubted highlight will be the dramatically inclined Håkan Nesser appearing in the highly dramatic surroundings of the Hauptkläranlage, Vienna's modern main water purification plant, (of which the city is most proud) and for which event tickets have already been allocated by lottery.
Readings start at 5pm, individual events last between one and two hours and are staged at staggered times across the participating venues, the last sessions starting at 10pm. There is usually no entry fee. So it may be possible to get to two or more sessions. But bear in mind that the most popular events will be crowded, and may even require reservations.
Find the Kriminacht website here: http://www.kriminacht.at/de/home
One author who will not be appearing on Kriminacht, at least not at the front of the room, is the multi-award-winning Austrian writer, Wolf Haas. Born in 1960, he is best-known across the German-speaking world as the author of six best-selling novels featuring Simon Brenner, an "observant, stubborn and slightly melancholic former police officer turned private investigator." (Quotes, here and later, from Austrian bibliographer Richard Dnnenberg.) Three of them have featured amongst the winners of the German Krimi-Preis, one an outright winner. After the sixth novel in 2003 however, he announced to the sorrow of many an Austrian crime fiction reader, that he would write no more Brenner novels. Recently he has rescinded that decision, and the new Brenner novel is currently topping the best-seller list in Die Presse, Austria's most distinguished newspaper, outselling even Dan Brown's Lost Symbol.
Only one Wolf Haas novel has been translated into English, The Weather Fifteen Years ago (Ariadne Press, 2009), the formally innovative and unclassifiable novel he wrote after deciding to abandon the Simon Brenner series. So are the Brenner novels "untranslatable", a view often expressed this side of the Channel? "Their language" observes Donnenberg, "is colloquial, witty, distinctly recognisable, with a touch of Viennese dialect and many incomplete sentences by the narrator that reflect the way people really talk. Occasionally, the otherwise impersonal narrator even addresses the reader directly." Not, surely, beyond the talents of our best translators? The French, for example, now have three Brenner titles in translation.
"Wolf Haas" another reader said to me, "has created his own sub-genre." A prize worth having surely in the increasingly standardised world of crime fiction. Will an English-language publisher please stand up?
Meanwhile, if you do get to Vienna, don't forget to visit the delightfully-named Thrill and Chill bookshop at 125 Mariahilferstrasse. (You can both chill and thrill on Kriminacht, in the company of Thomas Askan Vierich, Viennese writer and journalist.) The shop artfully combines crime and thrillers with children's books and cookery, as well as audio books and a small but well-chosen selection of books in English. Want a recipe for Madame Maigret's Coq au Vin? I found it at Thrill and Chill. Good too to see Robert Wilson on their best-seller list (check out the full list at www.thrilland chill.at).
Shoppers may like to approach the shop along Mariahilferstrasse itself, the longest shopping street in Austria (get off the U-Bahn at Neubaugasse and walk away from the city centre). But the shop is actually closer to Westbahnhof, further along the same line (look for the Bürgerspitalgasse exit). So fans of Carol Reed's The Third Man get the chance to check out the mainline station at which Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) first arrives in Vienna to look up his old friend Harry Lime.
(Cue a certain well-known piece of zither music.) And make my coffee a Pharisaer, strong mocha, served with a glass of rum...
