His first published work was the poetry collection »Flügellos« (2000, tr: Wingless). His prose début came in 2005 with the satire »Europa. Eine Litanei« (tr: Europe. A Litany), a panorama of curiosities and anecdotes from a continent in constant change, with its dissolving old borders and emerging new ones. In 2006 his first novel appeared, »stillborn«, in which he combines elements of the classic crime novel with the psychogram of a young woman who is plagued by the feeling that she has never really lived. His second novel »Terminifera« (2007) is also a portrait of someone living in the big city. The novel has an elliptical structure: a loose sequence of impressions, dreams and thoughts of the protagonist are strung together and organised in short chapters which deal with his childhood in a home, his work in a hospital and his colleagues. The world he can't explain reveals itself to him in bizarre phenomena and experiences, from the fragments of which he assembles his image of reality. In the author's fourth novel, »Böse Siele« (2009, tr: Bad Games) Stavariè turns his attention to the theme of the eternal battle of the sexes: a man loves a woman who lives with another man, with whom she has a child, whilst another woman desires him and pursues him to the point of self-abandonment. With a minimum of plot and a great deal of tension, Stavarič plays a destructive game about desire, sex, devotion and betrayal, where none of the social rules of love apply. The novel plays with clichés, platitudes and figures of speech. In dream-like short sequences everyday situations are followed by fragments from mythology and lyrical impressions.
Michael Stavarič has received numerous literary prizes, including the Austrian State Prize for Children's and Youth Literature, the Austrian Buchpreis award and the Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Prize. Aside from his career as a writer, he also works as a reviewer, translator and editor. Stavarič lives in Vienna.
Taken from internationales literaturfestival berlin
