The Odyssey of Michael Aldrian

Michael Aldrian, a retired Viennese opera prompter, travels to Venice to visit his brother and sister-in-law for the holidays, but they seem to have disappeared without a trace. Intending to write a travel guide to Venice, Aldrian heads out into the flooded city. But he is subsequently followed, threatened, and attacked. He then receives a package of Italian lira, presumably as a bribe. The police advise him to return to Vienna, but he stays, hoping to solve the mysterious disappearance of the couple. Yet another package contains the hands of his brother and sister-in-law, and soon thereafter their bodies are fished out of the sea. Inexorably and almost without his complicity, he is drawn into the intrigue, more as a participant than as a spectator. As if in a nightmare, he traverses the city and kills several people who stand in his way. Has he gone crazy, or is it the world?

Author Gerhard Roth was born in Graz in 1942, the son of a medical doctor and a nurse. He originally intended to study medicine, but soon discontinued his studies. For ten years Roth worked as a computer programmer to support his growing family, but since the mid-1970s he has been exclusively a writer. His major works consist of a cycle of seven novels, Die Archive des Schweigens (The Archives of Silence), and another novel cycle, Orkus (Hades). His work has earned extensive critical acclaim over the years, including the Döblin Prize (1983), the Kreisky Prize (2002), and the Grand Austrian State Prize (2016), among many others.

Gerhard Roth (1942-2022) was born in Graz, the son of a medical doctor and a nurse. He originally intended to study medicine, but soon discontinued his studies. For ten years Roth worked as a computer programmer to support his growing family, but since the mid-1970s he has been exclusively a writer. His major works consist of a cycle of seven novels, Die Archive des Schweigens (The Archives of Silence), and another novel cycle, Orkus (Hades). His work has earned extensive critical acclaim over the years, including the Döblin Prize (1983), the Kreisky Prize (2002), and the Grand Austrian State Prize (2016), among many others. Since 1986, he and his wife, Senta, have been living in Vienna and in a small farmhouse in Styria.

Todd C. Hanlin (1941-2022) was Emeritus Professor of German at the University of Arkansas. He authored a book on Franz Kafka, edited Charles Sealsfield's Austria as it is, and a collection of essays entitled Beyond Vienna: Contemporary Literature from the Austrian Provinces; he wrote on numerous Austrian authors, translated a dozen novels and a similar number of plays, as well as a volume on The Best of Austrian Science Fiction. Hanlin translated six novels by Gerhard Roth, including the Venice trilogy, all for Ariadne Press.