Elsa Asenijeff's Is That Love? and Innocence: A Voice Reclaimed

Elsa Asenijeff's short-story collections, Is That Love? (1896) and Innocence: A Modern Book for Girls (1901), provide the first English translations of two early feminist works that address the woman question at the turn of the 20th century. These books critique the bourgeois family, lack of education and professional opportunities for women, and systemic sexual violence. They also challenge dominant narratives of romantic love and marriage. Asenijeff's importance in the history of women's writing in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century German-speaking world and her relevance to the contemporary global #MeToo movement are emphasized by the translators.

Format: Hardback
Length: 162 pages
Publication date: 20 September 2022
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

This edition presents the first English translations of two early feminist short-story collections by the Austrian writer Elsa Asenijeff (1867-1941). While she is best known as the lover and muse of sculptor and painter Max Klinger, Asenijeff was a widely read author in her own right. Both books engage with the woman question at the turn of the twentieth century: Asenijeff explores the lack of education and professional opportunities for women and girls, critiques the bourgeois family as a site of patriarchal power, and sheds light on systemic sexual violence. Is That Love?, in particular, dismantles dominant narratives of romantic love and marriage. Written while Asenijeff was living in Bulgaria, the text also engages with that country's political turmoil.

In Innocence, Asenijeff relies on some of the traditional characteristics of Mädchenliteratur, educational literature for girls, but also subverts its conventions. In their introduction, the translators explicate the sociohistorical background of both texts, arguing for Asenijeff's importance in the history of women's writing in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century German-speaking world and placing her within the larger context of the contemporary global #MeToo movement.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781640141476