Regina Hilber

- Austria -

Regina Hilber was born 1970 in Hausleiten (NÖ/Lower Austria). For some years she lived in the Tyrol, since autumn 2006 she stays in Vienna. Regina Hilber has received various scholarships, i.e. Staatsstipendium für Literatur 2006 and Wiener Autorenstipendium and has been awarded various prizes, i.e. Anerkennungspreis des Landes NÖ für Literatur 2010. She was invited for scholarships to various countries, such as Italy (Paliano), Germany (Schloss Wiepersdorf), Slovakia (Stary Smokovec) and Slovenia (Ptuj).

Publications in various literature magazines and anthologies:

Sprachen des Sammelns (Fink Verlag München 2016), Auserlesen and Mein Weinviertel (both Literaturedition Niederösterreich 2016), Von Schriftstellern, Troubadixen und Heiligen Löchern (Edition art science 2016), Maschinen und Momente (Limbus Verlag 2016).

Book publications so far:

"Ich spreche Bilder". Prose and poetry. TAK-Verlag Innsbruck (2005), "zeichensetzung. Zeilensprünge". Luftschacht Verlag Wien (2009), "im schwarz blühen die schönsten farben". Edition Thurnhof Horn (2011) and "schanker" – ein Bericht aus Wien. Literaturedition NÖ St. Pölten (2014) and "Landaufnahmen". Limbus Verlag (2016). Landaufnahmen (Limbus Verlag 2016) and  ÜBERSCHREIBUNGEN (Edition CH 2017).

Her works have been translated into Armenian language in the literary magazine "ANDIN", Yerevan/Armenia 2017 and in the anthology "Literary Ark Festival 2015", Yerevan/Armenia 2016 - essay by Regina Hilber.

She has received the Projektstipendium 2016-2017.


Regina Hilber was born in Lower Austria (Hausleiten) in 1970. For several years she chose the Tyrolean highland as her adoptive home, before she moved to Vienna in 2006. Together with Thomas Ballhausen she created a series of events called zeichensetzung. zeilensprünge – an initiative for writers of the younger generation.

 

She is a poet and a writer of poetic prose. She was awarded many prizes, scholarships and writer-in-residencies in foreign countries. Her writing is characterized by an impressive range of ways of expressing herself. So it says about her book of poems ich spreche bilder as follows: "The synaestethic brook of poetry, which one can feel from the very first page – to follow eventually till the last bend – is flowing sometimes volubly, sometimes laconically, at times the reader is confronted with lyric prose, with condensed monologues of a lyric self, at times with more or less strongly alliterating puns or with poetic prose sketches from the daily routine of poetry writers." (Sabine Eschgfäller)

 

The images quoted in her titles may be understood literally – Regina Hilber is entangling her poetic ductus with visual art works of Herbert Fuchs – and to antagonize eventual misunderstandings from the very beginning: This is no superficially pleasing work, by none of both arts, text and image are on an equal footing and the respective message refers to frictions, usual interpretations are discarded, interesting is what exists beyond the (verbal) images, what at first sight hides from the superficially coherent – in short, the bulky, the resistive.

 

This imagery/this metaphorical language is very characteristic for the work of Regina Hilber. Also in her book of poetry im schwarz blühen die schönsten farben (2010) the expressiveness of word and image – partly subtle, partly concrete – assist each other. Where the writer seizes unusual, surprising poetic verbalisation, the visual artist Claudia Berg is answering. "In the lithographies of Claudia Berg we see botanic shadings, which maybe sprawl from a ruin’s entrance. In scarified weatherings a sacred building is disintegrating, in front of burst vases fast-growing butts have taken control over the view.", Helmuth Schönauer points out coming to the conclusion:

 

"Texts as well as images of this noble book are redeemed, restrained, mysterious. But these pieces of art don’t lose sight of the reader, they look back. Therefore the title of the book may be interpreted as visual message: in black the most beautiful colours are blossoming!"

 

For Regina Hilber not only the real existing surroundings – no matter if urban or shaped by rural influences – but also the topography of the inner world are objects of poetic investigations. And never, neither in alliteration nor in her aphoristic or epigrammatic approach the writer goes astray of her poetic cause. Receptions, which in other connotations already might have come close to commonplaces, turn into completely new and unexpected fields of contemplation, which are not only convincing, but at the same time are opening new levels of meaning.

 

Also the prose of Regina Hilber is characterized by this structure of writing always along borderlines: In 2014 she published schanker – ein bericht aus wien, a book which again refers to the entanglement of word and image (pictures by Gerlinde Thuma): "Being a joint composition of both artists this book describes home and foreign land, counterpoint and perception, the complex and problematic nature of one’s own and the other, coefficients of mediation of a society’s overall concepts and its ruling and predominant ideology." (Helmuth Schönauer)