Der Weg nach Surabaya

Christoph Ransmayr began his literary career as a cultural editor and reporter. He wrote his first articles for the Austrian monthly magazine Extrablatt, later for Merian or Geo, and especially for TransAtlantik. From the large number of these works, Ransmayr has now selected the most important pieces and compiled them into this collection, along with six examples of short prose. The journey to Surabaya also traces a literary development story, marking the emergence of a great author. Whether Ransmayr recounts the construction of the dams in Kaprun, the forced labor of prisoner columns amidst Austrian idylls, a pilgrimage to the last empress of Europe, or the arduous life on the Halligen in the North Frisian Wadden Sea – or whether he transports the reader of his short prose into the labyrinth of Knossos, onto the back of a truck in East Java, or into the faded splendor of the Indian ruined city of Fatehpur: he always combines the apparent ease of his storytelling with a keen awareness of the present and a rare linguistic perfection.