Evelyn Schlag Collection

The collection provides an almost complete record of the author’s literary output, from her earliest works to the present day. The diverse range of notes, drafts and research material associated with each work also allows to trace her research and writing processes.

Work:

• Poetry, short stories and novels
• Unpublished novel ‘Unsicher’
• Translation (Douglas Dunn’s ‘Elegies’)
• Texts for radio
• (Award) speeches, essays, reviews, talks, and lectures

Collectibles:

• Research material organised by theme
• Author's copies

Evelyn Schlag was born in 1952 in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, where she still lives and writes and is actively involved in the literary scene of the town, most recently, for example, with the ‘Leseze!chen’ Literature Days in Waidhofen and the Literature Artist-in-Residence programme. She studied German and English at the University of Vienna. From 1978 to 1981, she worked as a secondary school teacher in Vienna; from 1981 until her retirement, she taught German and English at the Bundeshandelsakademie in Waidhofen an der Ybbs.

Alongside her teaching career, she devoted herself to writing from an early stage. Following her literary debut with the short story Nachhilfe in 1981, she developed into a writer who transcends literary boundaries, moving effortlessly between different genres with an affinity for intermedial forms of expression. She wrote numerous novels, short stories and poetry collections, as well as a multitude of literary contributions to anthologies, newspapers and magazines, and reviews. Evelyn Schlag gave lectures on poetry and wrote for the radio (including for Hessischer Rundfunk).

In Austria, Evelyn Schlag has received numerous awards for her work, including the Großer Kulturpreis des Landes Niederösterreich (1994), the Anton Wildgans Prize (1997) and the Österreichischen Kunstpreis für Literatur (2015). In 2023, she was also awarded the Golden Medal of Honour for Services to the Province of Lower Austria.

Her German translation of Douglas Dunn’s Elegies in 1991, the artist-in-residence programme at Dickinson College in Carlisle, USA—which has been in place since 2001—and the translations of some of her own works have also brought her recognition in the English-speaking world.