Wort-Anker Werfen: Ilse Aichinger und England

In honor of Ilse Aichinger’s ninetieth birthday, the Austrian Cultural Forum in London held a symposium in March 2011; this slim volume stems is derived from that event. Eight scholarly essays; one personal memoir by Ruth Rix, Aichinger s niece; and one artistic piece by Austrian writer Peter Waterhouse of “osterreichisch-britischer Herkunft” (163) all focus on the eponymous connections to England within Ilse Aichinger s body of work. The title signifies England as a place to which Aichinger was “sehnsiichtig verbunden” (7) and where she cast a proverbial anchor during the Third Reich’s persecution and long thereafter.