Three book projects are currently taking shape at the intersection of
literature, urban research and documentary storytelling.
Project 1
Die Prüfung
2029. German Matura. Five hours. Four perspectives.
When an extreme weather event moves the written Matura examination
at a Viennese secondary school online, three students and their
teacher sit in different parts of the same city, facing the same
task. Between a municipal housing estate, a Gründerzeit apartment
building, a new-build district, a villa on the city's outskirts -
and an empty school building - a polyphonic portrait of present-day
Vienna emerges: a city caught between social promises, the climate
crisis and visions of the future that have become fragile. And the
more time passes, the less clear it becomes who and what is actually
being examined that day.
Project 2
Dröhnen im Kopf - What it means to make a life
A collection of poetry about taking responsibility for oneself, letting go of anger and bitterness, and leading an authentic life.
Project 3
Changing New York
A book about the changing Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Building on my
doctoral studies,
I am writing about how a diverse but fragmented metropolitan
community attempts to hold its ground against hyper-neoliberalized
urban governance and financialized housing logics in its own
neighborhood - not always gracefully and often painfully, amid
different life experiences and unequal access to opportunity. Yet, with each step,
small victories keep carrying the project of a Just City a little
further. At a time of growing economic precarity, social polarization and pressing climate change, the book asks where social and political agency can still be
found in everyday life.
