Doron Rabinovici

Doron Rabinovici presenting his novel 'Andernorts' in Vienna, on 2010-09-16.

Doron Rabinovici is an Israeli-Austrian writer, historian and essayist. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1961 and moved to Vienna in 1964.

Overview

In 1994, Suhrkamp published his first book Papirnik, a collection of short stories most of them set in Vienna's Jewish environment. Three years later his first novel, Suche nach M. (Search for M.), was published which was translated into English by the US publishing company Ariadne Press. Search for M. is the portrayal of two families with Shoah survivors and their sons who live with memories they can’t express in the midst of the Austrians’ negation and denial of their past. In 2004 his new novel, Ohnehin (Anyway) was published. In this novel, the main protagonist Stefan Sandtner, a young neurologist, is confronted with a patient whose sudden and bewildering illness of the mind causes his memory to fail and sets him back in the year 1945. Herbert Kerber is stuck in his past as an SS officer. The novel's apparent lightness contrasts with the fundamental issues dealt with: hidden and present past, remembering and forgetting.

His doctoral thesis concerns the reaction of the Viennese Jewish community’s administration to the persecution by the National Socialists and the community’s consequent extermination. In 2000, the Suhrkamp branch Juedischer Verlag published his thesis under the title Instanzen der Ohnmacht. („Authorities of Powerlessness") which raises the painful questions of resistance and collusion that have come to dominate recent debates on the Holocaust.

In 2001, he wrote Credo and Credit, a collection of essays and articles about literature and politics. By combining serious and ironic texts, he speaks about his identity as a Jew who was born in Israel, lives in Vienna and writes in German. He has been awarded numerous literature prizes, most recently the Clemens-Brentano-prize of Heidelberg and the Jean-Améry-prize, both in 2002. In Austria Doron Rabinovici is known as an intellectual voice against racism and anti-semitism.

Works

• Ohnehin Roman. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, "2005" (ISBN 3-518-45736-5)
• Credo und Credit. Einmischungen Frankfurt/M.: edition suhrkamp, "2001" (ISBN 3-518-12216-9)
• Instanzen der Ohnmacht. Wien 1938-1945. Der Weg zum Judenrat. Historische Studie Frankfurt/M.: Jüdischer Verlag bei Suhrkamp, 2000 (ISBN 3-633-54162-4)
• Suche nach M. Roman. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1997 (ISBN 3-518-40850-X)
• Papirnik. Stories Frankfurt/M.: edition suhrkamp, 1994 (ISBN 3-518-11889-7)
• Der ewige Widerstand. Über einen strittigen Begriff Styria-Verlag, (2008 ISBN 978-3-222-13239-1)
• Das Jooloomooloo Doron Rabinovici (Text), Christina Gschwantner (Illustration), jooloomooloo, Wien, 2008, (ISBN 978-3-200-01231-8)

Politics

Since 1986 Rabinovici is speaker of the Republican Club New Austria, an intellectual group that was formed against the background of the anti-Semitic presidential campaign of Kurt Waldheim. In 1999 he became the speaker of Demokratische Offensive (Democratic Offensive), a movement geared to mobilize the Austrian civil society against the threat of a center-right coalition with Haider's extreme right-wing party. The Demokratische Offensive called for mass demonstrations against racism. The response was overwhelming – in February 2000, 300,000 people assembled on Vienna's historic Heldenplatz to stage the largest demonstration in Austria's post-war history.

Awards

• 1994 3-Sat-scholarship at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition
• 1997 Ernst-Robert-Curtius-Förderpreis für Essayistik (award for essays)
• 1998 Hermann-Lenz-scholarship
• 1999 Bruno-Kreisky-Anerkennungspreis
• 2000
  • Mörike-Förderpreis of the city of Fellbach (literary award)
  • Heimito-von-Doderer-Förderpreis of the city of Cologne (literary award)
  • cultural award of the city of Vienna
• 2000
  • Clemens-Brentano-award of the city of Heidelberg
  • Jean Améry-award
• 2004 Author of the year of the literary journal Buchkultur

Further reading

• (German) "Kritische Ausgabe 2/1997"

Béatrice Gonzalés-Vangell, Kaddish et Renaissance, La Shoah dans les romans viennois de Robert Schindel, Robert Menasse et Doron Rabinovici, Septentrion, Valenciennes, 2005, 348 pages

External links

• (German) Official website
• (German) Catalogue German National Library

Persondata
Name	Rabinovici, Doron
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Date of birth	1961
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