Annotated Edition Werner Kofler (Prose)

From the 1960s onwards, author Werner Kofler (1947-2011) has ranked among the most respected and important writers in Austria. His aesthetic intransigence, his radical progressive impetus, his critique of society, language, and media render him a highly reflexive and deeply modern author. His work constitutes a critical comment on contemporary German literature, as well as a résumé of Austrias history and cultural history (Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler). The aim of this project to prepare a compact annotated edition of Koflers work as befits his position in literature has repeatedly been proclaimed a desideratum of literary criticism and scholarship. On the one hand, such an undertaking will ascertain the availability and accessibility of Koflers complete works in the foreseeable future; on the other hand, it will make apparent the merit of his oeuvre as a comment on public, political and cultural life since the 1970s and open this textual repository of knowledge to a broad readership. Disengaged from national implications, the texts can be understood as linguistic research and as a quest for adequate aesthetic means to react to a specific state of reality. Based on substantial scholarship, the annotations will uncover the wealth of allusions, reality particles and intertextual references, which are defining features of the specific, singular quality of Koflers work. The Annotated Edition Werner Kofler will provide detailed textual commentary; it will address editorial and reception history, literary-historical contexts, as well as literary methods and textual strategies. The projects objective is to prepare an edition of Koflers prose work; editing texts of other genres will be reserved for a later project. The publishing houses involved (Deuticke, Sonderzahl) have expressed an interest in the edition.

From the 1970s onwards, author Werner Kofler (19472011) has ranked among the most respected and important writers in Austria. His aesthetic intransigence, his radical progressive impetus, his critique of society, language, and media render him a highly reflexive and deeply modern author. His work constitutes a critical comment on contemporary German literature, as well as a résumé of Austrias history and cultural history (Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler). The aim of this project to prepare a compact annotated edition of Koflers work as befits his position in literature has repeatedly been proclaimed a desideratum of literary criticism and scholarship. In November 2019 the annotated edition of Werner Koflers prose was published in Viennas Sonderzahl Verlag (three volumes, 1800 pages). On the one hand, our undertaking ascertain the availability and accessibility of Koflers complete works in the foreseeable future; on the other hand, it makes apparent the merit of his oeuvre as a comment on public, political and cultural life since the 1970s and opens this textual repository of knowledge to a broad readership. Disengaged from national implications, the texts can be understood as linguistic research and as a quest for adequate aesthetic means to react to a specific state of reality. Based on substantial scholarship, the annotations uncovers the wealth of allusions, reality particles and intertextual references, which are defining features of the specific, singular quality of Koflers work. In November 2018 we launched a website (ß-version) with a great part of all 3100 annotations (funded by the Austrian Science Fund Project No. PUD 1-G23). With this online publication the accessability and usability of the annotations are crucially imoproved.