Zsuzsanna Gahse – författare

The narrator of Volatile Texts: Us Two falls in love with Pierre, the book’s secret protagonist. During their trysts she rediscovers Switzerland, a place where every valley has its own language and every person is translated. It’s a perfect microcosm of Europe—a collection of accents, languages, and landscapes. Volatile Texts is Zsuzsanna Gahse’s ironic and prescient meditation on a Europe that is disintegrating in the same way that the Alps disintegrate into individual lakes and valleys. Yet language itself is the true subject of these prose miniatures, which are volatile and unstable because they expose language as an arbitrary construct made of interchangeable parts; however, this is also what makes the book such an exciting read.

A narrator and her dog are criss-crossing the Swiss Alps. She travels with friends who share her interest in food, languages and their topographical contexts. They collect colours, even look for colourlessness, and develop the idea of a walk-in diary, a vain attempt to archive their observations.Gradually, other mountains appear in their observations and memories, as do the mountains of literature and art. Mountains may be sites of fear and awe, of narrow-mindedness, racism and ever-looming collapse; Alpine lodges may be places of hospitality, retreat and unexpected encounters; of nature under threat.In 515 notes, Zsuzsanna Gahse unfolds a finely woven interplay between her six characters while giving us a vivid panorama of mountain worlds, a multi-layered typology of all things mountainish.

Dieses Buch ist voller Geschichten in Leichter Sprache. Es enthält 14 neue, schöne, abenteuerliche und überraschende Geschichten von Schweizer Autorinnen und Autoren. Aber auch Texte aus der Weltliteratur. Leichte Sprache ist eine besondere Art, Geschichten zu erzählen. Sie konzentriert sich auf das Wesentliche. Leichte Sprache ist für Menschen, die eigentlich gern lesen. Denen es aber nicht leichtfällt. Oder für Menschen, die Deutsch lernen. Oder für Menschen, die mit dem Gedächtnis Mühe haben. Die Geschichten in diesem Buch sind für sie. Und sie sind für uns alle. Geschichten von Franz Hohler, Franz Kafka, Dorothee Elmiger, Angélique Beldner, Günter Eich William Carlos Williams, Christoph Keller, Damian Bright, Zsuzsanna Gahse, Rahel Hutmacher, Katharina Tanner, June Jordan, Jan Heller Levi, Julia Weber, Ivna Žic, Claudia Vamvas, Etrit Hasler, Andres Lutz, Christine Fischer, Usama Al Shahmani, Peter Bichsel, Michael Fehr, Muriel Rukeyser

The narrator of Volatile Texts: Us Two falls in love with Pierre, the book’s secret protagonist. During their trysts she rediscovers Switzerland, a place where every valley has its own language and every person is translated. It’s a perfect microcosm of Europe-a collection of accents, languages, and landscapes. Volatile Texts is Zsuzsanna Gahse’s ironic and prescient meditation on a Europe that is disintegrating in the same way that the Alps disintegrate into individual lakes and valleys. Yet language itself is the true subject of these prose miniatures, which are volatile and unstable because they expose language as an arbitrary construct made of interchangeable parts; however, this is also what makes the book such an exciting read.