Der Gefesselte

In her early stories written between 1948 and 1952, among them the famous ‘Spiegelgeschichte’, which received the Gruppe 47 prize, Ilse Aichinger radically opposes the repression of death and war in the ‘reconstruction’ period. She turns the ideology of success of that time on its head with the assertion that only by becoming aware of threat, destruction and loss is it possible to experience the present intensely. “Ilse Aichinger approached her storytelling with a courage that was a dreamy protest, a revolt against stable life” (Karl Krolow).