Austria’s Sprachsalz is an international festival geared mostly toward German-speaking readers and audiences.
In total, 20 authors were invited to this year’s Sprachsalz, for an entire weekend, from Sept. 12 to 14, to give readings from their published books.
The organizers are an experienced team of six people, some of them authors themselves: Magdalena Kauz, Heinz D. Heisl, Urs Heinz Aerni, Elias Schneitter, Max Hafele and Valerie Besl.
A number of Americans that were invited to this year’s Sprachsalz came from the pool of winners from this summer’s Acker Awards, which were organized by Clayton Patterson, in New York, and Alan Kaufman, in San Francisco. The Villager was a sponsor of this year’s Ackers — which were held at Theatre 80 St. Mark’s — and produced a special booklet on the honorees.
Kaufman was the conduit to the American authors at Sprachsalz, including Downtowners Ron Kolm, Patricia Smith and Steven Dalachinsky.
Kaufman is the first author to have been invited twice to Sprachsalz. Sprachsalz translated his book “Jew Boy” into German, and he is on a book tour of Germany and Austria.
Patterson was invited to show his biopic, “Captured,” and was one of the people who documented the festival.
Patterson, the longtime Lower East Side documentarian, has said he plans to move at some point to Austria with artist Elsa Rensaa, his wife.
