出版社：Université Catholique de Louvain, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
摘要：Founded by the author and editor Alfred Kolleritsch, the Graz-based literary journal manuskripte documented the evolution of Austrian avant-garde literature and art from 1960 onwards. Influenced by the pioneering work of the Vienna Group and developing concurrently with the rich literary and artistic scenes based around the Forum Stadtpark in Graz, manuskripte soon became the primary Austrian outlet for experimental writing. The journal provided crucial support to these young, innovative writers, who were often treated with hostile condescension by an Austrian literary establishment which had grown intolerant to formally experimental writing in the postwar decades. While the journal’s first issue mostly featured poetry, there is a noticeable turn to prose in later issues—specifically, to a form of experimental short prose that operates as a laboratory for experimentation with language, syntax, and form. With an obvious will to challenge the conventions not only of literary form, but also of literary culture, the Graz writers inserted an element of play into the serious legacy of modernist writing, expounding philosophies of “Happy Art and Attitude” and hosting raucous public readings punctuated by performance art, beer, and heckling. The short prose forms they developed resisted the epic drift of modernism, aiming instead to demonstrate new possibilities of textual representation that moved beyond conventional narrative forms and opened new paths for prose writing in subsequent decades. This article looks at the development of the Austrian experimental short prose form as played out in the pages of manuskripte through the work of writers such as Friedrich Achleitner, Peter Handke, Barbara Frischmuth, Gert Jonke, and Gunter Falk.
