Support Ukraine through donations here

Shopping Cart

Your cart is empty

Continue Shopping

Ingeborg Bachmann, Mike Mitchell (TRN)

War Diary

€13,95

Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) is recognized as one of the most important novelists, poets, and playwrights of postwar German literature. As befitting such a versatile writer, her War Diary is not a day-by-day journal but a series of sketches, depicting the last months of World War II and the first year of the subsequent British occupation of Austria. These articulate and powerful entries--ll the more remarkable taking into account Bachmann's young age at the time--reveal the eighteen-year-old's hatred of both war and Nazism as she avoids the fanatics' determination to "defend Klagenfurt to the last man and the last woman." The British occupation leads to her incredible meeting with a British officer, Jack Hamesh, a Jew who had originally fled Vienna for England in 1938.

He is astonished to find in Austria a young girl who has read banned authors such as Mann, Schnitzler, and Hofmannsthal. Their relationship is captured here in the emotional and moving letters Hamesh writes to Bachmann when he travels to Israel in 1946. In his correspondence, he describes how in his new home of Israel, he still suffers from the rootlessness affecting so many of those who lost parents, family, friends, and homes in the war.

War Diary provides unusual insight into the formation of Bachmann as a writer and will be cherished by the many fans of her work. But it is also a poignant glimpse into life in Austria in the immediate aftermath of the war, and the reflections of both Bachmann and Hamesh speak to a significant and larger story beyond their personal experiences.

Format: Paperback
Published: in UK in 2018
Publisher: Seagull Books
Pages: 108
Language: English
ISBN 13: 9780857425324
ISBN 10: 0857425323

Shipping & Delivery

Please allow us 24-48 hours to prepare your order. Once your order is ready to be dispatched, we will send it via Deutsche Post DHL which quotes the following delivery times:


Within Germany: 3-5 working days
Within Europe: 7-10 working days

We currently only ship to countries in Europe and the United Kingdom. If you have a request for shipping to another area of the world, please contact us at shakespeareandsons@gmail.com.

Refunds & Returns

At Shakespeare & Sons you can shop with confidence. We are happy to provide a refund or voucher of equal value where the goods are returned within 21 days of purchase unused, in original condition, accompanied by proof of purchase.

To return an online order within the refund policy period, please contact us and we will then give you instructions on how best to return your order so we can process your refund.

To return an in store purchase, please bring the purchased item and proof of receipt into the store, within 21 days of purchase.

Please note we do not offer discretionary exchange or refunds on Gift Vouchers, Sale Items, or damaged products. 

Gift Wrap & Cards

Shakespeare & Sons offer gift wrapping and greeting cards. To have your items gift wrapped, head to our Gift Wrap collection, choose the paper you prefer and add it to your cart. We will wrap the items for you and send them to the address you have submitted or have it ready in store for you to collect (depending on what option you select at check out).

Check out our Greeting Card collection here. If you would like us to include a message in your selected card, forward your purchase confirmation onto shakespeareandsons@gmail.com with some words and we will add these in for you. 

We're here to help

Can't find what you're looking for?

If the book you're after is not displayed on our website or is 'sold out' please feel free to contact us at shakesandsonsberlin@gmail.com or come into the store and we can let you know the cost of ordering it and expected arrival time.

War Diary

€13,95