OUR MAN IN VIENNA:

Herbert Kuhner Visits Writers Unlimited Soiree

A literary soiree held for visiting author, translator and poet Herbert Kuhner at a local professor's house drew out regional luminaries to hear the work of a man whose family confrontation with the horrors of the Holocaust continue to dominate his oeuvre. On hand to hear Kuhner at the Writers Unlimited soiree, held by Dr David Axelrod, were such individuals as poets Adam Fisher and Mindy Kronenberg, literary critic Ron DeGennaro, and prize winning novelist Anthony DiFranco. Kuhner's story is a compelling one. He was born in Vienna in 1935 and in 1939 his family was forced to leave what had become the Ostmark. Kuhner grew up in the United States, associating with the New York City jazz and coffee scene in the 1950s, and after he graduated from The Lawrenceville School and from Columbia University, he returned to Vienna in 1963 where he carved out a life as a writer, translator and editor. A list of his publications indicates the range of his work. Among them are Nixe (Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1968), Broadsides & Pratfalls (The Menard Press, London, 1976) and Austrian Poetry Today (Schocken Books, New York, 1985). New Editions of Hawks and Nightingales: Current Burgenland Croatian Poetry and Corinthian Slovenian Poetry are now in preparation. His non-fiction novel Der Ausschluss, Memoiren eines Neununddreisigers (Memoirs of a 39er), appeared in 1988, Edition 39/Verlag Der Apfel, Vienna. Wären die Wände zwischen uns aus Glas / If the Walls Between Us Were Made of Glass: Austrian Jewish Poetry, 1992, were both published by Verlag Der Apfel, Vienna. Im Sand Deiner Gedanken /In the Sand of Your Thoughts poetry by Else Keren and Meine wahre Heimat / My True Homeland poetry by Stella Rotenberg and Tamar Radzyner were published by Edition Mnemosyne /Alekto Verlag in 1997 and 1999 respectively. Kuhner is also the author of The Assembly-Line Prince (Eirich Verlag, Vienna, 1994) which is both in novel and drama form. His works and papers are collected by Boston University Library. But while his work holds a wide range, particularly in the area of translation, of note is Kuhner's devotion to depicting the experience of Jewish people in Austria, and the complex nature of their position in Europe both during the Nazi period and after. Here's an example of his work: The Anti-Fascist Brigade The Anti-Fascist Brigade is always at hand when a writer is maligned or blacklisted by the powers-that-be If the writer in question happens to find a loophole to slip his work through the Brigade acts with alacrity to quickly plaster it up. A translation by the author of a poem by Peter Paul Wiplinger reveals this enduring concern. LESSON IN COLOR water is mixed with blood the waters of this earth what sense is there in the bright colors of generals of cardinals in their uniforms in their splendid robes there was a black train and later piles of bodies what sense is there in a world of masks and costumes death has no color the dead are dead This was the second soiree for Writers Unlimited and Dr Axelrod, who last year hosted the noted American writer and Connecticut Poet Laureate Leo Connellan just months before his death.

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