Marianne Fritz - The Weight of Things

— Adrian Nathan West

1 Naturally , or, more precisely, in accordance with nature.

2 That is, the Null family, residing in Number 0, Null Street, in the town of Nowhere.

3 From a letter from Marianne Fritz to her editor included in the volume Was soll man da machen.

Marianne Fritz (1948–2007) was an Austrian novelist. She lived most of her adult life in a small apartment in Vienna’s 7 thDistrict, devoted entirely to her writing and dependent on small subsidies and occasional prize money. Her first book, The Weight of Things , marked the beginning of an ambitious cycle of novels with the overarching title of Festung , or “The Fortress,” comprising Das Kind der Gewalt und die Sterne der Romani, Dessen Sprache du nicht verstehst , and the gargantuan Naturgemäß , the third volume of which she was preparing at the time of her death.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Adrian Nathan West is the author of The Aesthetics of Degradation as well as the translator of numerous works of contemporary European literature. He lives between Spain and the United States with the cinema critic Beatriz Leal Riesco.