Doris Knecht
For the first time in many years, she feels free again: The children have moved out, and peace spreads in her existence between city life and country life. But then her sister occupies her apartment, she risks losing a tooth, and she is confronted with her own finitude. While the rather marginal health dilemma grows into a small existential crisis, she encounters a man from her past again in the supermarket: Friedrich. A meeting that poses a question she thought she would no longer have to deal with: Is she ready for another romantic relationship? Or better said: Is she ready to share her good life, to risk her inner satisfaction, once again? A modern novel about life as a woman that questions the eternal primacy of romantic love - unbittered, witty, and life-wise.
Doris Knecht, born in Vorarlberg, is an author, journalist, and columnist. She has been working at Falter since 1988, and she has also written for Profil, die Presse, NZZ, and has been writing regular columns for Vorarlberger Nachrichten since 2010. Doris Knecht lives in Vienna and in the Waldviertel.
Her collected columns were published by the Wiener Czernin-Verlag, her first novel "Gruber geht" was nominated for the German Book Prize in 2011 and was turned into a film by Marie Kreutzer in 2015. In 2013, her novel "Besser" was awarded the Literature Prize of the Ravensburger Foundation. "Alles über Beziehungen" (2017) was nominated for the Austrian Book Prize, and the novel "Wald" (2015) was filmed by Elisabeth Scharang.
Doris Knecht, Yes, no, maybe, Hanser Berlin, release 22.07.2025
"She is a reliable feminist voice that calmly anchors current discourses in an everyday life every woman knows. And about which men should know more." (Karin Cerny about "A Complete List of All the Things I've Forgotten", profil)
"A book that I read with quiet enthusiasm." (Christine Westermann about "A Complete List of All the Things I've Forgotten", WDR 2)
"I think men should also read such books to understand what we women actually feel and what is sometimes done to us." (Elke Heidenreich about "The Message", Spiegel)
"It is part of the literary art of the Austrian writer to develop a story from a initially manageable problem that creates an astonishing pull... Knecht has perfected a style that reveals the breathlessness and fragility of her characters... 'The Message' can be read as a relevant theme book or as a genuine thriller with a depressing ending." (Carsten Otte about "The Message", Tagesspiegel)