Das Kind

This narrative, created in 1945/46, marks the debut of the author Christine Lavant. It tells the story of a child's life in a sanatorium and remains entirely within the girl's perspective, who barely understands the mysterious and existential events happening around her. Many of the later themes are impressively addressed here: illness, physical disability, society's discriminatory treatment of it, and the dignity of those affected in asserting their existence in backward conditions shaped by religion and superstition. From early childhood, Christine Lavant herself was marked by various severe illnesses; she could empathize with the fate of her characters in a unique way: it was her own or at least based on real experiences during her numerous hospital stays.