‘Das dreißigste Jahr’ (‘The Thirtieth Year’) by Ingeborg Bachmann (Review)

In choosing themes for German Literature Month, Caroline and I were looking for writers with anniversaries in 2026, and when I saw that this year marked one hundred years since the birth of Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann, it seemed only fitting to choose her as one of our two featured authors for the event. My selection this time around is a collection of stories, and as it turns out, I’m not the only one who had Bachmann on their radar – as you’ll see at the end of my post, there’s something new for fans of her work appearing in English very soon ***** Das dreißigste Jahr (The Thirtieth Year) is a collection of seven stories that appeared in German in 1961. While they cover a range of themes and situations, what the stories have in common is Bachmann’s light, breezy voice, as well as a style that pulls the reader through the scenes we’re immersed in. Most of the pieces included here are sketches of everyday life, but in the writer’s hands, they’re far more interesting, providing…

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