News

/ 10 April 2015

Perfect day

Festival Literatur & Wein kicks off to a fantastic start with writer Lily Brett.

What a perfect day to start a festival! Literaturhaus NÖ was crowded like never before on an opening day of Literatur & Wein! About 180 people gathered to see and listen to famous New York writer Lily Brett.

The importance of the writer and of the festival was emphasized by the facts that television came to have interview with Lily Brett and that Austrian Federal Minister of Culture Dr. Josef Ostermayer attended the opening day of the festival.

After the welcoming speeches Sylvia Treudl from Literaturhaus NÖ gave a very touching introduction to the work of Lily Brett before the writer went on stage. Lily Brett read two of her essays, "Calm" and "My father" and extracts from "My Mother’s Glasses" and "So Jewish" as well as three poems.

Sylvia Treudl then had the honour to read the German part, for which she chose several essays from Lily Brett’s latest book of prose "Immer noch New York" (Only in New York) as well as some poems.

After the reading Lily Brett and journalist Dagmar Kaindl from weekly magazine NEWS had a very interesting and moving talk about her life. Despite all the terrible things that had happened to her family, with so many relatives murdered, her mother and her father only spread love. Lily Brett told about the humor of her father, who will get hundred years old in 2016 and about one rare moment, when Lily, in Kindergarten then, made her mother laugh by telling she had been followed by a turtle …

Lily Brett also explained what it is to be Jewish – among many other things: to worry about everything and to cook too much …

And finally Lily Brett had to fulfill her third task of the evening – after reading and discussing she was ready to sign books. And it was an unbelievable queue of people who seized the rare opportunity to have a book signed by famous Lily Brett.

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