Journal of Austrian Studies

Maria Lazar (1895–1948) was an Austrian-Jewish writer, whose works had mostly fallen into oblivion until the aptly named publisher Das vergessene Buch Verlag started republishing her books: Die Vergiftung (1920, republished in 2014) and Die Eingeborenen von Maria Blut (1937, republished in 2015). Leben verboten! was only ever published in English by Wishart & Co in London in 1934, so the 2020 publication of the book by Das vergessene Buch Verlag is the first German edition of the book based on the 1932 original manuscript. The novel is followed by a fift y- eight- page afterword entitled "Kolportage und Wirklichkeit: Zu Maria Lazars Roman Leben verboten!" by Johann Sonnleitner, who has been instrumental in promoting the rediscovery of this fascinating writer. The afterword provides readers with a detailed and very useful history of Maria Lazar's work and life as a writer. Thus, this book contains both the novel and a detailed scholarly analysis of the book and Lazar's other works.

Without spoiling the novel or even commenting on the riveting plot, the book gives insights into life in Berlin and Vienna in 1932 before the Nazis took power in Germany, but much of the mystery of the book centers on young men conspiring with the political right and the fear that an older generation has about the potential changes that the younger generation may bring about. Lazar has a realist style of writing that helps her readers feel the time and space in which the novel's plot takes place. The Viennese characters speak in their authentic vernacular of the 1930s. The main protagonist travels between Berlin and Vienna, through the newly foreign Czech lands, and this provides a fascinating comparison of the two metropolises, where Berlin is reminiscent [End Page 159] of Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929)—a big city struggling with a continued economic crisis. Vienna is by comparison a much smaller city in the novel, though much as the cliché would have it is more elegant, most notably with the State Opera House and its other cultural institutions. What unites the two places are economic uncertainties that affect the wealthy and less wealthy classes almost equally, as well as political uncertainties that are underscored by political radicalism in the Interwar period. As one might expect, this is a time where people are confronted with the realities of post–World War I life and at the same time there is a distinct and haunting fear of future conflict and possibly war.

As Sonnleitner points out in his afterword, Lazar was mostly overlooked by her writer colleagues, even though she ran an active literary salon at the time. Only Elias Canett i mentioned her in Das Augenspiel: "Ich sollte bei Maria Lazar, einer Wiener Schrift stellerin, die wir beide unabhängig voneinander kannten, mein Drama Hochzeit vorlesen. Einige Gäste waren geladen. Ernst Fischer und seine Frau Ruth waren darunter [ … ] Maria Lazar hatte Broch erzählt, wie sehr ich die Schlafwandler bewunderte, die ich während des Sommers dieses Jahres 1932 gelesen hatte" (326–27). Sonnleitner emphasizes that Canett i seemed more interested in Broch than Lazar, though at least he acknowledged her as a writer. She is not mentioned in Ernst Fischer's autobiography. Oskar Kokoschka, who had painted her portrait several times, did not mention her in his autobiography either, nor is she mentioned in secondary sources on Hermann Broch (327). Apparently, only Renate Wall's Lexikon deutschsprachiger Schrifstellerinnen im Exil 1933–1945 (2004) and Siglinde Bolbecher and Konstantin Kaiser's Lexikon der österreichischen Exilliteratur (2000) mention Maria Lazar, as Sonnleitner points out (326). This is a great example of how a writer can fall into oblivion, especially if one is too concentrated on the supposedly great literary figures of a time. Of course, one also has to wonder if a male writer would have fallen into the same oblivion as Lazar.

Apart from being a great read and a catchy novel that you will not want to put down, Maria Lazar...