Narratives of Loving Resistance. Two Stories By Erich Hackl, Translated by Edward T. Larkin

The two stories contained here reveal Erich Hackl's unique and luminous perspective on the relationship between historical reality and literary representation. Drawing on historical documents and authentic individuals, Hackl portrays the inspiring lives of those who have suffered the terror and injustice of twentieth-century Fascism.

Recovering from a wound sustained as a result of his involvement with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, the Austrian Karl Sequens falls in love with a strong and scrupulous Spanish woman who cared for him in the hospital. The story of their brief but enduring love both for each other and for social justice is narrated through the memory of their daughter. In his touching portrait of the fate of these non-fictional individuals, Erich Hackl illuminates an alternate perspective on Austria's position in the frenzied social and political configurations that mark Europe from the 1920s to the 1990s.

In "History of a Promise," the mind of the septuagenarian protagonist retraces a path from his poverty in the Vienna of the First Republic through his internment in the concentration camps to his entrepreneurial success in his chosen South American exile as he reveals for the first time a promise that he had made.

Born in Steyr in 1954, Erich Hackl is one of Austria's most significant and prolific contemporary writers. Known primarily for his well-received, book-length narratives (docu-literature), whose heroes are reminiscent of the authentic individuals of Latin American testimonial literature, he affirms the social-democratic orientation of his principal characters as well as the importance of the power of narration to resist oppression and engender trust.