Rita Svandrlik: Writing to exist. The life and works of Ingeborg Bachmann

The author in conversation with Antonella Gargano (Rome, La Sapienza), Giuliano Lozzi (Rome Tor Vergata)
Moderated by Camilla Miglio (Rome, La Sapienza)

The book has been published by Carocci Editore in March 2026.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ingeborg Bachmann’s birth

Offering a new, comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the life and works of the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973), this volume encourages readers to explore her writings, many of which were composed during her various stays in Italy; in Ischia, Naples and, above all, Rome. Widely translated into Italian, Bachmann is now attracting the attention of new generations, following the enthusiastic reception she received in the 1980s and 1990s from feminist circles. A cosmopolitan and European intellectual, she is now regarded as a classic author of the twentieth century, with a body of work that ranges from her first highly acclaimed poetry collections, through radio plays, essays and two opera librettos, to her extraordinary narrative prose. Even moments of personal crisis did not prevent her from devoting herself entirely to writing, accepting the challenge posed by the corrupted language of opinions and clichés, to broaden the horizons of the sayable and the possible: the writer can indeed ‘represent her own era and present something for which the time has not yet come’. Memories of the past and a meticulous analysis of the mechanisms of power create in her texts ‘a realm open to the future, the boundaries of which we do not know’.

Event in Italian language. Without reservation, entrance free.

Rita Svandrlik © private

Rita Svandrlik, professor of German Literature at the University of Florence from 2006 to 2022, has taught and conducted research at various universities, including Vienna, Bonn and Leipzig. A founding member of the Italian Society of Women Writers and the Archive for Women’s Memory and Writing, she is a member of the “Elfriede Jelinek International Research Network” at the University of Vienna. She has worked on mythical constructions of the feminine, Austrian literature and various female authors, including E. Jelinek, Ch. Wolf and M. Haushofer. She has dedicated a monograph (I sentieri della scrittura, 2001, Carocci) and various essays to Ingeborg Bachmann and edited the volume Das dreißigste Jahr (2020) of the Salzburg Edition of Bachmann’s “Works and Letters”.

Antonella Gargano © private

Antonella Gargano taught German literature at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at Sapienza University of Rome and at the University of Macerata. She has organised numerous cultural events, conferences and exhibitions and has collaborated on performances based on literary themes. She was president of the Italian Association of German Studies. She has published studies on expressionism, the relationship between cities and the avant-garde, and the memory of urban landscapes. She has studied Ingeborg Bachmann’s individual works in relation to other writings (Christa Wolf, Giuliana Morandini, Joyce Lussu) and other artistic languages (Anselm Kiefer).

Giuliano Lozzi © private

Giuliano Lozzi is an associate professor of German language, translation and linguistics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. His research interests focus on 20th-century German language and literature, with a particular emphasis on women’s literature and Jewish-German culture.

Camilla Miglio © private

Camilla Miglio is Professor of German Studies at La Sapienza University in Rome, having previously taught in Pisa and at the Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”. She studies the development of European literary consciousness, with a focus on the German tradition and its characteristic “relational” nature. She investigates the lines marked by the humanistic heritage and its relationship with the ancient world, East-West and North-South relations, Jewish-German culture, and the links between poetic discourse and science, music, geographical space and the environment. Monographs on Paul Celan (Celan e Valéry. Poesia, traduzione di una distanza, Naples 1997; Vita a fronte. Essay on Paul Celan, Macerata 2005; Ricercar per verba. Paul Celan and the Music of Matter, Macerata 2022); on Ingeborg Bachmann (The Land of the Bite, Ingeborg Bachmann’s Chthonic Italy, Macerata 2012, 2023); on literary reception through translation. Translations from C. Brentano; U. Draesner; H. M. Enzensberger; J. and W. Grimm; E.T.A. Hoffmann; F. Kafka; J. A. Liebeskind; P. Waterhouse. She has been awarded the following prizes: Ladislao-Mittner-Preis für Deutschlandsstudien (2005); Bundesverdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.