Original scientific paper

Triest as Place of Refuge and Counterpoint to the Homeland in the Novel “Dauerhaftes Morgenrot” by Joseph Zoderer

Johann Holzner ; University of Innsbruck

Abstract

No other work occupied the Southern Tirolian writer Joseph Zoderer as long as his novel „Permanent Dawn“ (Dauerhaftes Morgenrot), which he worked on (discontinuously) since 1976; the book appeared for the first time in 1987. From the very beginning, (as the priliminary stages of the novel demonstrate), the author chose a Mediterranean island for its setting. The protagonist is a man in his best years, however, stranded in every respect. This constellation fatally recalls other novels from the time after 1968, such as, for instance, the biographical report „The Thirty-Year Peace“ (Der dreißigjährige Friede) by Peter O. Chotjewitz (1977), in which another stranded man, in this case on Sardinia, finds an idyllic world in contrast to the familiar system of norms in Germany. In the final version of Zoderer’s novel, this simply-knit and conventional dichotomy is, however, suspended. The setting and timeframe of the plot remain unknown for a long time. Only gradually, it turns out that the protagonist left his home and sojourns in Trieste. But his home, as is visible at the beginning and at the end, is a region located further north; it is a landscape dominated by ashes, larches, and apple trees instead of cypresses and it is possible to see snowflakes there as late as in May. – The accent of home is still present in the language of the novel.

Keywords

Joseph Zoderer, Trieste, Mediterranean

Hrčak ID:

308750

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/308750

Publication date:

15.7.2019.

Article data in other languages: german

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