Summary
Ljuba Arnautović: The First Daughters
In this novel, Ljuba Arnautović follows the leitmotif of strong and indomitable first daughters in her family, but her father Karl is at the center of the story together with them. She dedicates this novel to her brothers and sisters and to him, Charlie.
After serving ten years in prison, Karl was released on the very day of Stalin's death, in 1953. Three years later, he returned to his native Austria, and his wife Nina arrived in Vienna with their two daughters. Karl is "rootless, without homeland, without inner support". People in post-war Austria don't want to know anything about what happened to him. The "Russians" are now viewed with suspicion at best. Karl must achieve his personal and social progress as quickly as possible and by all possible means. His third marriage with a young medical student, Dörte, means going to another country and creating dubious connections with Moscow. Luna and Lara, daughters from their first marriage, become pawns in the family relationships that are authoritarianly determined by their father Karl.
Two sisters grow up in different worlds: one in modest conditions with their mother in Vienna, the other with their father and his new middle-class family in Munich.
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