Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard, a conversation with Sandra and Paolo Di Paolo, readings by Lino Guanciale and Camilla Semino Favro

Vienna, the 1980s. Following a performance at the Burgtheater of Ibsen’s The wild duck, a group of people wait to begin dinner - with some impatience and growing hunger - in the elegant apartment of the Auersberger’s, she a singer and he a composer. Sitting in an armchair with a glass of champagne in hand, the main character and narrator describes to the reader everything he sees and hears, using implacable harshness (cutting, just like a woodcutter) and unparalleled sarcasm to describe the tics, manias and miseries of a certain social circle that he himself is part.

Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) Born in the Netherlands, where his mother, who had conceived him out of wedlock, fled to give birth, Thomas Bernhard - author, playwright, poet and journalist - spent most of his life in Austria, and is considered as one of the greatest German-language writers of the twentieth century. Published in 1984, Woodcutters is the second book (dedicated to the theatre) in the so-called Arts Trilogy, which also includes The loser (1983, which focuses on music) and Old masters (1985, on the theme of painting).

 

 

Tuesday 18 May 2021 at 6 p.m.
Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard
A conversation with Sandra and Paolo Di Paolo
Readings by Lino Guanciale and Camilla Semino Favro