Isabella Straub: Nullzone

The Austrian Isabella Straub was Erfurt's writer-in-residence in 2023 and was certainly one of the most active in the history of the Stadtschreiber:innen: she was incredibly open and committed to the cultural scene from day one and got to know a lot of people. This was mainly through her project to offer creative writing in the outskirts of the city, in the prefabricated housing estates. She has also finished writing her new novel "Nullzone" in Erfurt. And of course she will also be presenting it in Erfurt at the "Frühlingslese". The book takes us to Vienna, the city of Isabella Straub's birth.

Everything is upside down in the 22 floors of the Kratzer. The crooked high-rise building with social housing in a Viennese urban development area is to make way for a futuristic luxury real estate project. Completely different lifestyles collide when janitor Elfi starts a petition and parcel carrier Rachid protests more or less voluntarily in the #jesuiskratzer movement. On the other side is futurologist Gabor, who wants to treat himself and his wife to a new phase of life in an AI honeycomb, but begins to have more and more doubts about the project, his relationship and his whole life.
Isabella Straub has come up with an extremely entertaining story that interweaves the fates of the three main characters and poses existential questions. Is there a basic right to housing? And how much do we actually need to live? She slips linguistically into the roles of her characters and gets so close to them that you can't help but laugh out loud while reading.

The author has received numerous awards and scholarships, such as the FM4 Wortlaut-Literaturpreis and the Walter-Serner-Preis.

In cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation/Thuringia regional office