Elsa Asenijeff?s Is That Love? and Innocence : A Voice Reclaimed

This edition provides the first English translations of two short-story collections - Is That Love? (1896) and Innocence: A Modern Book for Girls (1901) - by the Austrian writer Elsa Asenijeff (1867-1941). Primarily remembered as the lover and muse of sculptor and painter Max Klinger, in her time Asenijeff was a widely read author. Both books engage with "the woman question" at the turn of the twentieth century: Asenijeff thematizes the lack of education and professional opportunities for women and girls, critiques the bourgeois family as a site of patriarchal power, and sheds light on systemic sexual violence. Is That Love?, in particular, dismantles dominant narratives of romantic love and marriage. Written while Asenijeff was living in Bulgaria, and set there, the text also engages with that country's political turmoil. In Innocence, Asenijeff relies on some of the traditional characteristics of Mädchenliteratur, educational literature for girls, but also subverts its conventions. In their introduction, the translators explicate the sociohistorical background of both texts, arguing for Asenijeff's importance in the history of women's writing in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century German-speaking world and placing her within the larger context of the contemporary global #MeToo movement.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Is that Love? Short Psychological Tales and Observations
Love: A Story from Bulgaria
She
The Governess: Story from Bulgaria
Misery: Episodes from Women's Lives
I
II
III
IV
The Riddle
The Fly: Story from Bulgaria
Raïna Karadjova: Story from Bulgaria
The Vow
Two Moderners
What?
Innocence: A Modern Book for Girls
Introduction
Secrets
Darkness of the Metropolis
Girls' Gossip
Marriage
At the Folksingers'
Alone
The Three Sisters
Tatjana
Lora's Housekeeping Week
Mother's Telling a Story! (Two Fairy Tales)
Aunt Jola
On the Forest Path
What Girls Are Not Supposed to Know
Girl and Woman (A Chat)
Small Child
A Fairy Tale
School Friends
And So Shall We Be Sanctified

ELSA ASENIJEFF (1867-1941) was an Austrian writer and partner of Max Klinger.

EVA HOFFMANN holds a PhD from the University of Oregon and teaches in Germany.

ALEXIS B. SMITH holds a PhD from the University of Oregon and is an assistant professor of German at Hanover College.