Uwe Johnson: Un viaggio a Klagenfurt – Sulle tracce di Ingeborg Bachmann

 

In conversation with Frencesco Fiorentino (Università Roma Tre) and Camilla Miglio (La Sapienza). Moderation: Marco Federici Solari (L’orma editore)

June 25, 2026 marks the centenary of the birth of Ingeborg Bachmann, one of the most compelling and innovative figures in twentieth-century European literature. A hundred years after her birth, her work continues to challenge and inspire us with remarkable force, addressing themes such as memory, the violence of history, language, and freedom.

On the occasion of this anniversary, and following the exhibition dedicated to her by the Casa di Goethe in Rome in 2025, we are pleased to present a remarkable book recently published by L’orma editore: Un viaggio a Klagenfurt by Uwe Johnson, in the edition edited by Luigi Reitani.

This is not a biography in the conventional sense. A few days after Bachmann’s death in Rome in October 1973, Johnson set out for Klagenfurt, the city of her childhood and adolescence. The result is a singular work poised between reportage, documentary inquiry, literary reflection, and personal tribute.

“I have tried to trace the objective conditions of a person’s history,” Johnson wrote. Following the traces Bachmann left in her writings, letters, and in the memories of those who knew her, the German author reconstructs the historical and human landscape in which one of the major writers of the twentieth century took shape. In the background emerges a Klagenfurt still marked by the legacy of Nazism and the experience of war, elements crucial to understanding Bachmann’s sensibility and literary work.

Rather than simply recounting a life, Johnson explores the profound relationship between an individual and the places that have shaped them: the ways in which history inscribes itself in personal experience, memory continues to act through writing, and a city can become at once origin, wound, and destiny.

During the event, Frencesco Fiorentino, Camilla Miglio, and Marco Federici Solari will discuss this extraordinary book, the friendship between Johnson and Bachmann, Luigi Reitani’s editorial work, and the enduring relevance of a work that continues to speak to our present.

Uwe Johnson (1934–1984) was one of the most important German writers and intellectuals of the postwar period. With novels such as Speculations About Jakob (1959) and The Third Book About Achim (1961), he established himself as one of the most original voices in European literature, earning—though not always willingly—the reputation of being the first true “writer of the two Germanys.”

A tireless interpreter of his time and a central figure in German cultural life, Johnson devoted fifteen years to the writing of his major work, the tetralogy Anniversaries, now regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century German-language literature. He was bound to Ingeborg Bachmann by a deep friendship and an intense literary dialogue.

Event in Italian language

Free entrance, without reservation

In collaboration with

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, 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 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 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 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.

 

     

Ingeborg Bachmann would have been 99 years old on 25 June 2025. To honour this occasion, we invite you to a birthday celebration and offer guided tours through the exhibition Ingeborg Bachmann ‘I only exist when I write’, which is on display at the Museum Casa di Goethe until 31 August.

5.15 p.m. Guided tour in German language

6.00 p.m. Birthday reception

6.15 p.m. Guided tour in Italian language

 

In collaboration with

 

Images: Ingeborg Bachmann as a clown, mid-1930s © Bachmann Family Archive Matthias Bachmann; Exhibition view © Andrea Veneri

 

On the occasion of the exhibition Ingeborg Bachmann “Ich existiere nur, wenn ich schreibe”, at the Museum Casa di Goethe until 31 August.

 

Two committed voices of Italian and German literature present texts by Ingeborg Bachmann: Ilaria Gaspari (*1986) and Annabelle Hirsch (*1986) read from letters, reportages and excerpts from works that have influenced their own literary work.
The dialogue will focus on the question of what relevance Bachmann’s work still has today – particularly with regard to topics such as feminism, identity and language. How do Bachmann’s texts influence contemporary literature? What impulses does she give today’s female authors?
In an open exchange, Gaspari and Hirsch shed light on the complexity of Bachmann’s work and open up new perspectives on her writing – an evening between literary homage and critical reflection.

The event will take place in Italian and German language.

 

Ilaria Gaspari studied philosophy at the Scuola Normale in Pisa and at the Sorbonne in Paris. Among her books, translated into several languages: Lezioni di felicità. Esercizi filosofici per il buon uso della vita (Einaudi 2019), Vita segreta delle emozioni (Einaudi 2021), A Berlino con Ingeborg Bachmann (Perrone 2022), La reputazione (Guanda 2024). She has produced podcasts dedicated to Marcel Proust (Chez Proust, Emons 2022) and to Ingeborg Bachmann (Bachmann, Emons 2023).

 

Annabelle Hirsch is of German and French origin and studied History of Art, Theatre and Philosophy in Paris and Munich. She works as a journalist for Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, ZeitOnline and other magazines and has published short stories and literary translations from French. In addition to Il piatto (Corbaccio), she has published Una storia delle donne in 100 oggetti. She lives in Rome and Berlin.

In collaboration with

 

Event on the occasion of the current exhibition at the Museum Casa di Goethe Ingeborg Bachmann “I only exist when I write”

“Fascism is the first thing in the relationship between a man and a woman” says Ingeborg Bachmann in Gerda Haller’s documentary film from 1973 (featured entirely in the exhibition). In fact, the relationship between man and woman was a recurring theme for the Austrian writer, which she explored in many of her works. It is often about gender roles, the exploitation of power relations, infidelity, abandonment, but also about the search for autonomy and a new female self-confidence.
During the event, the Italian actress Simonetta Solder will read selected texts by Ingeborg Bachmann on the relationship between the sexes and on feminism – from Im Himmel und auf Erden to Undine geht and Malina, thus bringing us closer to an important aspect of the Austrian writer.

Simonetta Solder (*Klagenfurt) is a trained translator and actress. After studying in Vienna, she attended the HB Studio in New York and the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. In the theatre she worked with Giorgio Pressburger, Israel Horovitz and Francesca Comencini, and also took part in The Walks by Rimini Protokoll. Together with director Paola Rota and musician Teho Teardo, she worked on the theatre project Illegal Helpers by Maxi Obexer and directed the theatre lecture Gertrude, Lucia e le altre. Le donne del rivoluzionario Manzoni by and with Eleonora Mazzoni and Il fu Mattia Pascal with Giorgio Marchesi at Teatro Ghione. Her theatre translations include the American playwright Israel Horovitz, Roland Schimmelpfennig, Robert Woelfl, Kevin Rittberger, Azar Mortazavi and Bernhard Studlar. As an actress, she has appeared in TV and cinema productions directed by Giacomo Campiotti, Giacomo Battiato, Riccardo Milani, Marco Tullio Giordana, Ivan Cotroneo and Michele Soavi.

In collaboration with

OPENING: 12.3.2025, 7 p.m.

Introduction:

Gregor H. Lersch, director of the Museum Casa di Goethe

Teresa Indjein, director of the Forum Austriaco di Cultura Roma

Andreas Krüger, head of cultural affairs of the German Embassy Rome

Massimiliano Smeriglio, councillor for culture of Roma Capitale

Exhibition 13.3. – 31.8.2025

She is an icon of 20th century literary history and inspires readers worldwide to this day: Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973). The extensive exhibition shows her life and work and focuses on the places that shaped her: the Klagenfurt of her childhood, the Vienna of her early fame, Munich, Zurich,
Berlin and, again and again, Rome. Books and documents are presented, alongside her relationships with Max Frisch, Henry Kissinger and Marie Luise Kaschnitz, as well as numerous photographs from all phases of the life of the equally self-confident and vulnerable writer.

An exhibition of the Literaturhaus München and the Literaturmuseum of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in collaboration with the Museum Casa di Goethe

                      

 

With kindkly support of Forum Austriaco di Cultura Roma