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Regular version of the site

Peter Rosei in HSE Nizhny Novgorod

HSE Nizhny Novgorod held a meeting with one of the most important figures on the Austrian literary scene of the last third of the C20th, winner of the Austrian Prize for Literature 1991, and the Franz Kafka prize 1993 —- Peter Rosei.

Peter Rosei came to HSE to launch his new book Metropolis Vienna. The novel is a journey through time, space and the lvies of the people who inhabit this world: the city’s image is created from fragments, a mosaic of ‘ordinary’ stories, intertwining fates of characters, their feelings, desires and day-to-day life.

Peter Rosei has written over 20 prose works, two collections of poetry, numerous plays and radio plays, and is well known to Russian readers for his multifaceted narratives, sharply defined themes and outstanding composition. His early prose was described as ‘expressing the worldview of an entire generation.’ A later cycle of novels under the title ’15,000 human souls’ comprised six parts, two of which ‘Man & Woman’ and ’15,000 souls’ were translated into Russian, and explored the panoply of passions and suffering in modern society. This cycle of six books that Rosei wrote between 1980 and 1988 found a specific place not only in this writer’s oeuvre but in the reader’s understanding of their space.

Introducing the Austrian guest to the audience in Nizhny Novgorod, the moderator – Director of HSE’s Nizhny Novgorod campus Valery Zusman – stressed that Peter Rosei was not just a free writer, but a man who was inwardly free. This is what enables Rosei to not only write creative texts, but to also work as a talented journalist, writing articles on current issues, including economic ones. Students and teachers who attended the meeting with the Austrian writer asked a diverse range of questions: from problems of the conservation of historic buildings to a comparative look at works by Austrian authors about post-War Vienna. Rosei concluded the meeting with a book-signing session, signing copies of his book Metropolis Vienna.