Maja Haderlap (born 8 March 1961 in

Eisenkappel-Vellach Eisenkappel-Vellach () is a market town in the Völkermarkt District in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The spa town is the southernmost municipality of Austria, close to the border with Slovenia. Geography The municipal area covers the valley o ...

Carinthia Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...

)) is a bilingual Slovenian-

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Austrian writer, best known for her multiple-award-winning novel, Angel of Oblivion, about the Slovene ethnic minority's

transgenerational trauma Transgenerational trauma is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group. The primary mode of transmission is the shared family environment of the infant causing psy ...

of being treated as 'homeland traitors' by the German-speaking Austrian neighbors, because they were the only ever-existing military resistance against

National Socialism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was frequ ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

.Angel pozabe je postal moja pripoved
(in Slovene; Angel of Forgetting has become my narrative),

Delo ''Delo'' () is a business oriented online media in Ukraine, belonging to ekonomika+ media holding. ''Delo'' was the first daily in Ukraine, publishing its real print circulation (13.000 - 15.000) and trying to introduce Western editorial and b ...

's Pogledi Magazin, 2011, Ljubljana

Life

Her grandmother who was sent to

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 1 ...

. At ten years old, Haderlap's father was tortured by the Nazis to disclose where his father, who joined

Slovene Partisans The Slovene Partisans, formally the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia, were part of Europe's most effective anti-Nazi resistance movement Jeffreys-Jones, R. (2013): ''In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence ...

, was hiding. Her father often wanted to kill himself because of the way Austrian majority treated him. The family waited until he passed out, then pried his fingers from the gun. After reading her grandmother’s diary, she was “afraid of being overrun by the past, of being crushed by its weight.” She made a conscious decision to write about her family’s history in a novel.

Work

She holds a PhD in Theatre Studies from

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

and has worked at the Alpen-Adria-Universität in Klagenfurt. She was editor for many years of the Carinthian Slovene minority literary magazine 'Mladje' and wrote poetry, prose, and essays in both Slovenian and German. Her work has been published in numerous German and international literary journals and anthologies. From 1992 to 2007, she worked as drama supervisor at the Klagenfurt City Theatre. She is the most awarded member of the

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

's Guild of writers and lives in Klagenfurt.

''Angel of Oblivion''

Winning one of the most important awards for literature in the German language, the

Ingeborg Bachmann Prize The Festival of German-Language Literature () is a literary event which takes place annually in Klagenfurt, Austria. During this major literary festival which lasts for several days a number of awards are given, the major one being the Ingeborg B ...

in 2011, and the

Max Frisch Prize The Max Frisch Prize of the City of Zürich, created in 1996, is usually awarded every four years to writers in German-speaking countries. The prize is named after the Swiss writer Max Frisch (1911–1991). The literary award is endowed with a priz ...

of the City of

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

in 2018, her most notable novel was made into a drama and put on theater stages. The story is told from a point of view of a young girl, growing up in the late-1960s or early-1970s in the Austrian province of Carinthia, learning to navigate the terrain between Slovenian, a language of the past anti-Nazi resistance and present humiliation, and German, an escape from being treated as traitor by her German-speaking Austrian neighbors.

Books

* Žalik pesmi, Poems (1983) * Bajalice, Poems (1987) * Poems - Pesmi - Poems (1989) * Deček in sonce (The boy and the sun), zadruga Novi Matajur, Cividale and Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Založba Drava 2000 * Between Politics and Culture * The city of Klagenfurt Theatre from 1992 to 2007. The era Pflegerl Dietmar (2007) * Engel des Vergessens (Angel of Oblivion), Wallstein, Göttingen, 2011

Awards

* 2018:

of the City of

* 2017:

PEN Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been pr ...

for '' Angel of Oblivion'', translated by

Tess Lewis Teresa D. Lewis is an American writer, essayist and literary translator from French and German. Her translation of Austrian poet and novelist Maja Haderlap's novel ''Angel of Oblivion'' was awarded the 2017 PEN Translation Prize, the Austrian Cultu ...

in 2016 * 2012:

Honorary Doctor An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

University of Klagenfurt The University of Klagenfurt ( or ''Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt'', AAU) is a federal Austrian research university and the largest research and higher education institution in the States of Austria, state of Carinthia. It has its campus in ...

* 2012: Writer in residence in

one world foundation one world foundation is a non-profit aid organisation in Sri Lanka, which operates a school for more than 1,100 children, adolescents and adults. The project is financed with the proceeds from a guest house and from donations. The foundation is ...

in Sri LankaCf
owf.at: writer in residence
* 2011:

for the novel "Angel of Oblivion" * 2006/2007: Austrian State Scholarship for Literature * 2005: Women's Culture Prize for Literature in the province of Carinthia * 2004: Hubert Burda Prize as part of the Hermann-Lenz Prize * 1989: Award of Prešeren Foundation * 1983: Promotion Award of Carinthia

References

External links

Private Homepage von Maja Haderlap

Kurzporträt und Text ''Im Kessel''
bei bachmannpreis.eu *�
Translation
�� (Poem) translated by Tess Lewis published in

Words Without Borders ''Words Without Borders'' (''WWB'') is an international magazine open to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the world's best writing and authors who are not easily accessible to English-speaking readers. The ...

, February 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Haderlap, Maja 1961 births Living people Carinthian Slovenes People from Völkermarkt District 21st-century Austrian novelists Austrian women novelists Austrian women poets University of Vienna alumni 21st-century Austrian women writers