Mr. Kuka's recommendations (novel)

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Mr. Kuka's recommendations is a novel by the Austrian author Radek Knapp . It was published by Piper Verlag in 1999 . In the form of a picaresque novel , Knapp again deals with his country of origin Poland , which is compared with his new home in Vienna .

content

The 18-year-old Waldemar is curious about the "golden western world". Following the recommendations of his neighbor and mentor, the cultivated vodka drinker Mr. Kuka, he sets off from his native Poland on the most adventurous trip of his life. However, Vienna does not turn out to be the country he dreamed of. He tries his luck in many trades and businesses and is driven here and there by chance. Because of money problems, he starts looking for a job. The failure of the company landed him on the workers' line, where he fell victim to fraud along with some compatriots. After he gets away, he befriends Bolek, a Pole, who gets him a job in Bernstein's toy store and a roof over his head. Waldemar also gets to know Bolek's roommate, the German Lothar, and, without realizing it, becomes his accomplice in an absurd bank robbery with a water pistol. Ultimately, he finds out that luck can be useful in adversity and why he actually took this journey.

shape

The novel is in the tradition of the European picaresque novel . Told in first person form, the reader sees the world through Waldemar's eyes. This one-sided perspective is supplemented by the polyphonic dialogues of characters who, cliché, become carriers of certain ideas or points of view.

meaning

Knapp tells the story of a journey that has more than just a function of maturing. Poland and Vienna are placed in opposition to one another in the novel: Poland becomes the bearer and symbol of the East , of the self and of the familiar, Vienna embodies the West , the other and the foreign, whereby the other is initially assigned the value of "better". In the novel, Knapp addresses the conflict and interaction of two cultures, their differences and collisions. The own as well as the other are made visible on the basis of certain cultural practices or stereotyped images. By making use of the traditional prejudices of both peoples and playing with clichés, the writer himself creates two stereotypical images. He looks at the two peoples with an ironic distance, unmasked the stencils and triggers liberating laughter in the reader. The humorous approach enables a reinterpretation of the ideas found and aims at a potential intercultural reconciliation., It encourages you to think critically about the cultural differences and to gain a more conscious perspective.

With his novel, Knapp remains a cross-border commuter and cultural mediator who avoids giving the reader a definitive answer or security. With his experience both in and between two cultures, with the conscious choice of German as the working language and his literary work, he makes a contribution to improving cultural dialogue.

reception

In 2011 the writer was awarded the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize for the novel .

filming

In 2008 the novel was made into a film. Dariusz Gajewski directed this Austro-Polish production. The film was shot in Łódź and Vienna and introduces Lukasz Garlicki in the leading role of Waldemar.

expenditure

  • Lekcje pana Kuki . Krakow, 2003
  • Mr. Kuka's recommendations . Piper, Munich, 2011
  • Preporuke gospodina Kuke , Sipar, Zagreb, 2018

literature

  • Jakub Kazecki: Across the Border: Radek Knapp's Mr. Kuka's Recommendations and Instruction Manual for Poland . In Canadian Slavonic Papers, 51: 4/2009, pp. 449-467
  • Radek Knapp: For me, Vienna and Warsaw have merged into one city. Radek Knapp in conversation with Christa Stippinger . In Christ Stippinger (ed.): Everyone is a stranger elsewhere. An anthology with texts and interviews by the authors of the writing workshop for immigrants and members of ethnic minorities in Austria in 1995/1996 in the Amerlinghaus . Vol. 1. Vienna, Amerlinghaus 1996, pp. 145–148
  • Agnieszka Palej: Intercultural relationships between Poland and Austria in the 20th century based on the works of Thaddäus Rittner, Adam Zieliński and Radek Knapp . Oficyna Wydawn, Warsaw, 2004
  • Agnieszka Palej: A Polish immigrant in the German-speaking literary scene: Radek Knapp . In: Jean-Marie Valentin / Stéphane Pesnel (eds.): German studies in the conflict of cultures. Volume VI: Migration, Emigration and Remigration Cultures. Multiculturalism in contemporary German-language literature . Peter Lang, Bern 2007, pp. 217–223
  • Agnieszka Palej: Divergent cultural areas in the German-language literature of Polish migrant authors: Radek Knapp as a case study . In: Estudios Filológicos Alemanes , 20/2010, pp. 595–605
  • Agnieszka Palej: On inter- and transcultural aspects in the work of the German-Polish migrant authors of the present . In: WB Ernst Hess-Lüttich (Hrsg.): German in the intercultural meeting place of East Central Europe . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2010, pp. 275–288

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Agnieszka Palej: "Intercultural interrelationships between Poland and Austria in the 20th century based on the works of Thaddäus Rittner, Adam Zieliński and Radek Knapp". Wrocław 2004, pp. 210–212.
  2. ↑ Agnieszka Palej. Wrocław 2004, pp. 214–215.
  3. ↑ Agnieszka Palej In Wrocław 2004, pp. 201–202.
  4. ↑ Jakub Kazecki: Across the Border: Radek Knapp's Mr. Kuka's Recommendations and Instruction Manual for Poland, in Canadian Slavonic Papers, 51: 4/2009, p. 449.
  5. ↑ Jakub Kazecki: Across the Border: Radek Knapp's Mr. Kuka's Recommendations and Instruction Manual for Poland, in Canadian Slavonic Papers, 51: 4/2009, p. 467.