Where literature can be found in Vienna

Today's Grillparzerhaus, which is home to the Literature Museum, once functioned as the "Hofkammer Archiv", where Franz Grillparzer worked for many years as archive director. His study is still preserved in its original form, and some of the exhibition rooms are still equipped with historical archive shelves. Nestroy, Kafka, Bachmann and Handke can be found here peacefully side by side.

The baroque State Hall on Josefsplatz even impresses people who are not really into reading. Here you can immerse yourself in a world of 200,000 books in an imperial ambience with frescoes, a dome and magnificent furnishings. The hall was once part of the imperial court library.

Here you will encounter a huge collection of contemporary Austrian literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. Particularly exciting: The Austrian exile library is a focal point - writers and artists who had to flee from the Nazi regime are commemorated here in a lasting way.

What do the great psychoanalyst and the reopened museum have to do with literature? Quite simply, Freud was friends with many of Vienna's literary figures in his time or at least maintained occasional correspondence with them, including Schnitzler and Zweig. In Robert Seethaler's novel "Der Trafikant" (2012) and its film adaptation, Freud was just as much a protagonist as in the film "Mahler on the Couch" (2010). In the latter in particular, all the influential literary figures and artists of Vienna at the turn of the century have their say. 

A building in which one can literally breathe literary history - and not only when a play is being performed. The poets Raimund and Nestroy stood on the stage here, then as now numerous Austrian authors feel deeply connected to the theater. With many world premieres, director Föttinger skillfully combines contemporary theater and Austrian literature of the past and present. Doderer's "Die Strudlhofstiege" can also be experienced here for all those who do not want to read through 900 pages.