Peter Handke: Storm Still

translated by Samuel P. Willcocks

On the Jaunfeld, the plain at the centre of Slovenian settlement in the Austrian province of Carinthia, the dead and the living of a family meet. At the heart of this series of monologues is the battle of the Slovene minority against Nazism – the only prolonged armed resistance to the Third Reich within its boundaries. The hopes and promise of that struggle contrast with the renewed marginalization and suppression of the Slovenes and their language in Austria after 1945.

Taking up themes from and returning to characters from his earlier books like A Sorrow beyond Dreams and Repetition, Peter Handke’s Mülheim Dramatists Prize – winning play Storm Still is a chronicle of melancholy and humorous intensity. Presenting a panorama that extends far beyond all literary genres, Handke blends penetrating prose and poetic drama to explore a deeply personal history. In this book, the times of conflict and peace, war and pre–war and the seasons themselves shift and overlap. And the fate of an orchard comes to stand for the fate of a people.

German original published by Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin, under the title Immer noch Storm in 2010.