Patrick Holzapfel
Austria/Germany
He writes to keep from going insane or to remain insane—Patrick Holzapfel said in an interview with Litaffin. This author, curator, film maker, and film critic was born in 1989 in Augsburg and moved to Vienna to study theater, film, and media sciences. As a self-described cineast, he founded the blog Jugend ohne Film (Youth without Films). However, writing about films was soon not enough for this Viennese transplant. Before he presented his debut novel, Holzapf performed Spoken Word texts—for his text Gurgelgeräusche (Gurgling Noises), he was awarded first prize in the 2022 open mike, the most important German language youth competition for lyric and prose.
In his first novel Hermelin auf Bänken (Ermine on Benches), Holzapfel’s first-person narrator follows a homeless man through Vienna’s ninth district, drops onto a park bench, and remains seated there, reflecting. Holzapfel present the reader with a modern flaneur who is trying to work through his grief after losing his mother by sitting on various kinds of furniture. This pausing man invites the reader to observe and slow down as well. Holzapfel’s novel is a book in which refined language describes large action. A portrait of Vienna, written from its benches.
Hermelin auf Bänken. Novel. Rohstoff 2024
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