Part of Camenisch’s award-winning Bündner Trilogie (the third volume, Ustrinkata, won the Eidgenössische Literaturpreis in 2012) is an exploration of language and contemporary subjectivity. Camenisch weaves Standard German, Alemannic dialect and his native Romansch throughout this text to create a dense multilingual fabric. Told from the perspective of a young child living ‘behind the station’, the novel is an almost picaresque narrative in which the protagonist and his brother bounce from one adventure to the next whilst the harsh realities of alpine life simmer below the surface. Camenisch will be speaking in London in May 2019 as part of a wider event organised by the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre.
Translated? Yes! By Donal McLaughlin, Behind the Station, 2015
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