My Favourite Animal Is Called Winter

• Winner of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
• Nominated for the German Book Prize 2021
• Shortlisted for the Austrian Book Prize 2021
• Ferdinand Schmalz is a celebrated playwright who has had world premieres in Vienna, Zürich and Berlin
• English sample translation available

The debut novel of the Bachmann Prize recipient Ferdinand Schmalz

The Viennese frozen food supplier Franz Schlicht is to fulfill a macabre wish. His client Dr. Schauer has resolved to lie down in a deep freezer to die. He tasks Franz Schlicht with transporting his frozen body to a glade. At the agreed time, however, the freezer is empty, and Schlicht embarks on a highly unusual search for the corpse during which he meets the crime scene cleaner Schimmelteufel, an engineer, who has walled himself in, and a ministerial official who collects Nazi Christmas decorations. In 'My Favourite Animal Is Winter', Ferdinand Schmalz takes us on an precipitous tour through Austrian society, which is whimsical, intelligent and full of wit.

'Schmalz not only has a good feel for the alleged fringe places and characters, but also for the spaces that contain the secrets.' Sandra Kegel

A virtuosic novel that sounds like a song. ― Der Spiegel