KATHARINA WINKLER
Austria
1979 born in Vienna, Austria. She grew up in a small village in Upper Austria. She took piano lessons at Anton Bruckner University of Linz. She studied German studies, drama and philosophy. She received her PhD from the University of Vienna. She studied acting in Vienna. She has participated in film and theater productions.
In 2016 she published her first novel "Blue jewelry", "Suhrkamp", Berlin. The novel has been translated into several languages, receiving numerous awards and recognitions. In 2020 - "Suhrkamp" sets the theatrical play "(Au)Revoir Édith Piaf" (Goodbye, Edith Piaf) according to her text.
Katharina Winkler currently lives in Berlin.
BLAUSCHMUCK (BLUE JEWELERY)
Translation: Elena Koneska Svetieva
“Blauschmuck” is private property. Not to be seen. Not to be talked about. It is worn like a bracelet around the wrists, on ribs, legs, arms. Blue jewellery is another name for the marks left on women’s bodies, inflicted by the men around them.
This novel tells the story of Filiz and Yunus. When Filiz meets Yunus, he is young and beautiful, and Filiz is proud that he wants her. Against her father’s wishes, they marry when she is thirteen. Yunus is her entire universe, all encompassing, all powerful. Soon after the wedding, Filiz’s dream of living in the West with her husband, of escaping their small village in Anatolia for freedom and autonomy, comes crashing down around her. Yunus, only a few years older than his bride, turns their marriage into a prison of dependency and violence. There is no escaping the spiral of violence and love, which, to Filiz, have become inseparable.
Katharina Winkler’s powerful story of a marriage dominated by violence gives voice to a tenacious young woman whose will to survive is never broken.