Reading and dialogue with Sepp Mall "Ein Hund kam in die Küche"

In 1942, at the time of the 'options', a South Tyrolean family chooses to emigrate to the German Reich. Eleven-year-old Ludi tells about the last days in the village and the stop at the first station across the border: Innsbruck. On doctors' orders, the disabled brother Hanno has to be interned in an institution near Hall, while the rest of the family continues on to Upper Austria. The father is conscripted into the Wehrmacht and Hanno, too, never returns to the family. A letter from a Reich 'care and nursing home' is all that remains of him.

A touching novel, which in a language dense with images traces the deep pain of a child over the loss of his brother.

The dialogue with the author is moderated by Katrin Klotz (Südtiroler Künstlerbund).

Sepp Mall was born in 1955 in Curon Venosta, studied in Innsbruck, and now lives and writes in Merano. He has won several literary prizes and competitions, including the Meraner Lyrikpreis, the Staatsstipendium of the Austrian Federal Ministry and the Großes Literaturstipendium of the Land Tyrol. His two most recent published works are the novel 'Hoch über allem' (Haymon 2017) and the poetry collection 'Holz und Haut' (Haymon 2020).