Join us for an evening dedicated to the famous Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden and his last phase in Austria, on 21 March at 7 PM at the ACFNY. The event includes a short lecture, a reading, a music performance by the Ruiss-Trio and a panel discussion with Ann Cotten and Edward Mendelson.
About the Event:
W.H. Auden, one of the most famous poets of the 20th century in the English-speaking world, lived in New York from 1939 until 1972. Many New Yorkers know him as the Anglo-American poet and American citizen, but few know of his second home – Kirchstetten in Lower Austria – where he spent the summers for the last 15 years of his life. Auden bought the house in Kirchstetten, Hinterholz 6, in 1957, and when he died in 1973 after a reading in Vienna, he was buried in the Kirchstetten cemetery. Much of Auden’s later work developed during his time in Kirchstetten, and he even dedicated a cycle of poems to his home in Kirchstetten: “Thanksgiving for a Habitat”. After his death, part of his literary legacy remained in Lower Austria and formed the basis of the Lower Austrian Literary Archive. His former house in Kirchstetten remains a museum and was redesigned in 2015 by the government of Lower Austria, retaining the original „cave of making“. Thanks to his legacy, many literary projects have been developed in cooperation between the Department of Culture of the Province of Lower Austria and the archive (now known as the “Archiv der Zeitgenossen“). One of these projects is the idea of having contemporary writers respond poetically to Auden’s poems, specifically from the cycle “Thanksgiving for a Habitat”, which will be transformed into a book and published by the „Literaturedition Niederösterreich“ in September 2024.
A project in cooperation with the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, the Department of Culture of the Province of Lower Austria and the Archiv der Zeitgenossen, Lower Austria.
Date and time
Starts on Thursday, March 21 · 7pm EDT
Location
Austrian Cultural Forum New York11 East 52nd Street New York, NY 10022
Find more information about the participants on the ACFNY website and RSVP here