Escaping Expectations. Stories by Austrian Women Writers Edited by Barbara Neuwirth, Translated by Pamela S. Saur

This gripping collection of twenty-one diverse stories by Austrian women, most still writing, is characterized by portrayal of authentic women's experiences and unflinchingly blunt honesty. Protagonists are rural and urban, peasant and professional, single, married, and lesbian, young, middle-aged, and elderly. Bravely, if not always successfully, they confront issues of aging, relationships, careers, and oppressive conventions, as well as abuse, violence, and poverty. Just as the stories' authors struggle to transcend constraining expectations, their characters strive, often against great odds, to determine their own destinies. Authors included: Ilse Aichinger, Ingeborg Bachmann, Hertha Kraftner, Marlen Haushofer, Elfriede Jelinek, Marianne Gruber, Monika Helfer, Karin Ivancsics, Christine Haidegger, Marianne Schonbeck, Ingrid Lavee, Sylvia Treudl, Barbara Frischmuth, Karin Schoffauer, Dine Petrik, Elisabeth Reichart, Barbara Neuwirth, Margit Hahn, Dorothea Schafranek, Johanna Nowak, Ilse Kruger.