Selected Poems

Alfred Kolleritsch was born in Brunnsee, Austria in 1931, and now lives in Graz. He concluded his studies of Philosophy and German with a dissertation on Martin Heidegger. He is perhaps best-known as the president of the "Forum Stadtpark" in Graz, a role he has fulfilled since 1968, and as the co-founder and editor of the literary magazine, "manuskripte", a pioneering journal. His own work, which consists of prose and poetry, has won several awards, including the Horst Bienek Prize for Poetry (2005). This is the first selection of his work in English and brings before the English-speaking public one of the major figures in contemporary Austrian writing.

Alfred Kolleritsch (1931-2020) was born in Brunnsee in the Austrian state of Styria. He studied History, German and Philosophy at the University of Graz, where, in 1964, he presented a doctoral thesis on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. He taught at a grammar school in Graz from 1964 until 1993, and was a founder member of the Graz cultural centre 'Forum Stadtpark' in 1959, becoming its president in 1968, as well as a founder member of the Graz Authors' Association in 1973, to which he remained attached until 1983. He was editor of Austria's most influential literary magazine, manuskripte, a pioneering journal, which he co-founded in 1960.His own first work appeared in 1958, and he subsequently published poetry, as well as novels (Die Pfirsichtöter, 1972; Die grüne Seite, 1974; Allemann, 1989), film scripts, radio texts and children's books. His many poetry collections include the volumes Augenlust (Eyes' Desire, 1986), Gegenwege (Opposing Paths, 1991), In den Tälern der Welt (In the Valleys of the World, 1999), Summe der Tage (Sum of the Days, 2001), Befreiung des Empfindens (The Liberation of Feeling, 2004) and Tröstliche Parallelen(Comforting Parallels, 2006), and he has won several awards for his work, including the Petrarca Prize (1978), the Georg Trakl Prize (1987) and the Horst Bienek Prize for Poetry (2005).

Iain Galbraith, born in Glasgow in 1956, grew up in the west of Scotland and studied Modern Languages and Comparative Literature at the universities of Cambridge, Freiburg and Mainz. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Review, The Times Literary Supplement, PN Review, Edinburgh Review, New Writing, Best Scottish Poems and, in German translation, in the German and Austrian journals Akzente and Manuskripte.