Milena Michiko Flašar
(Austria, 1980) is considered a younger, female Haruki Murakami. She grew up in Austria, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an Austrian father. Her debut novel I Called Him Necktie is a bestseller in Germany and has been translated into seven languages. The novel is about a Japanese phenomenon: young people who shut themselves off from the world, somtimes sitting in a little room for years. Flašar describes how one such boy emerges after a two-year period of isolation and comes to sit in a park across from a salaryman, smartly dressed and holding a packed lunch. They stare at each other for days before falling into conversation about lives full of fear and failure, disappointment and shame. They have almost become friends when one day the wage slave no longer turns up. Flašar studied literary theory, Germanic studies and Romance languages. In 2008 she debuted the short story collection Ich bin (I Am), and in 2010 published the novella Okaasan - Meine unbekannte Mutter (Okaasan: My Unknown Mother).
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Archive available for: Milena Michiko Flašar
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The Text of My Life: Milena Michiko Flašar
In the Filmhuis Studio the festival's guest writers present their favourite literary texts and explain why a particular poem, novel excerpt, or song lyric influenced their life and work. Which memory, what feeling does this text call up for them? A continuous interview programme, in which the audience also talks with the writers. Hosted by Arjan Peters and Nuweira Youskine. In English.
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Voices from the East
Indonesian author Dinar Rahayu wrote a novel about S&M and transsexuality; the dream debut of Austrian-Japanese writer Milena Michiko Flašar—titled I Called Him Necktie—was about friendship and humanity; and Tao Yue, a Chinese writer living in the Netherlands, wrote about family ties and changing Chinese society in Shanghai Nocturne. Three different voices from the East, each with their own style, talk with Remco Breuker about their work, their world, and their identity. In English.