Abstract

Cycles are a topic, a motive and a poetic principle of Josef Winkler’s novel "Laß dich heimgeigen, Vater", oder "Den Tod ins Herz mir schreibe" (2017/18). It deals with the skeleton of the SS soldier Odilo Globocnik, who was buried in the community fields of the village Kamering after the end of the Second World War. Underlining his disapproval of the collective concealment of Globocnik’s end, the first-person narrator demonstrates in a letter-like text to his father various cycles (including food, people, narrations, etc.), that connect the skeleton with its surroundings. Starting with the earth of the community field, a toxic food chain is traced in Winkler’s work, which focusses on the area of the village. At the same time, a global guilt context pointing beyond this area is indicated. The concept of the ecosystem forms the background of the text, which connects ecology, memory and the origin discourse and in this way addresses ideas of home and the homeland.