On the occasion of two reading tours in January and March 1966, Ingeborg Bachmann introduced parts of an unfinished novel she last called

(The Book of Franza). In November 1966, however, she informed her editor at Piper publishing house: “I suddenly understood that it can’t work like this. It is not only the rough spots and some individual pages that bother me [...], the manuscript seems to me like a helpless allusion to something which is yet to be written” (TKA 2, 393-9). She never finished the novel

, although she continued to consider it as a part of her overall project

(Ways of Death, Ways of Dying) and contemplated its place in this cycle. In 1971, two years before Bachmann’s untimely death, another work was published as a first part…

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Citation: Albrecht, Monika. "Das Buch Franza". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 June 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35027, accessed 23 November 2024.]