Vienna Is Different - 9780857451811

Assessing the impact of fin-de-siècle Jewish culture on subsequent developments in literature and culture, this book is the first to consider the historical trajectory of Austrian-Jewish writing across the 20th century. It examines how Vienna, the city that stood at the center of Jewish life in the Austrian Empire and later the Austrian nation, assumed a special significance in the imaginations of Jewish writers as a space and an idea. The author focuses on the special relationship between Austrian-Jewish writers and the city to reveal a century-long pattern of living in tension with the city, experiencing simultaneously acceptance and exclusion, feeling “unheimlich heimisch” (eerily at home) in Vienna.

"[A]n impressive account of the origins and development of what is now a tradition of Jewish writers in Vienna. The author does a very good job of presenting the very large subject she has taken on and of putting the turn-of-thecentury writers within a chronological context that brings out how a 'tradition' of Jewish writers in Vienna has developed over the last century ... This is an impressive contribution, with a welcome approach." - Steven Beller, Washington D.C.

"[A]n important, extremely well constructed and original inquiry and a major contribution to scholarship on Jewish writing and its authors' literary reactions to the Austrian capital... In a systematic approach and within the proper historical context Herzog uncovers the panorama of Jewish-Austrian writing with Vienna as its focus ... Comprehensive and thorough, it conveys a wealth of information on individual authors, their time, and the changing cultural environment." - Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, University of Illinois at Chicago