Thomas Arzt with the text "Irma bringt Essen" and Johannes Wally with "Lovely Rita"

Birgit Birnbacher, born in 1985, is a writer living in Salzburg. Her debut novel
"Wir ohne Wal" (2016) was awarded the Jürgen Ponto Foundation Literature Prize.
She has also received numerous prizes and in 2019 was awarded the Ingeborg
Bachmann Prize. Zsolnay recently published the novels "Ich an meiner Seite"
(2020) and "Whereof we live" (2023).

www.hanser-literaturverlage.de

Johannes Wally was born in Vienna in 1978. He teaches and researches as a senior lecturer at
at the Karl-Franzens-University Graz at the Institute for English Studies. Wally is the author of two
academic monographs as well as two novels and a collection of short stories. He
publishes regularly in literary journals (e.g. LICHTUNGEN and manuskripte). Two
stories and an excerpt from a novel were broadcast in 2021, 2024 and 2025 by the Austrian
broadcast by Austrian radio (Ö1). His work has won several awards. Most recently he was nominated for
nominated for the Audience Award of the Chamber of Labor Literature Prize 2025.
www.lovelybooks.de