The two stories contained in this edition -- 'Love at First Sight: A Recollection' and 'History of a Promise' -- reveal Erich Hackl's unique and luminous perspective on the relationship between historical reality and literary representation. Drawing on historical documents and authentic individuals, Hackl portrays the inspiring lives of those who have suffered the terror and injustice of twentieth-century fascism. Recovering from a wound sustained as a result of his involvement with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, the Austrian Karl Sequens falls in love with Herminia Roudière Perpiñá, a strong and scrupulous Spanish woman who cared for him in the hospital. The story of their brief but enduring love both for each other and for social justice is narrated through the memory of their daughter Rosa María in 'Love at First Sight: A Recollection'. In his touching portrait of the fate of these non-fictional individuals, Erich Hackl illuminates an alternate perspective on Austria's position in the frenzied social and political configurations that mark Europe from the 1920s to the 1990s. In "History of a Promise," the mind of the septuagenarian protagonist Willi retraces a path from his poverty in the Vienna of the First Republic through his internment in the concentration camps to his entrepreneurial success in his chosen South American exile as he reveals for the first time a promise that he had made.
