Important novels
Michail Bulgakow: “The Master and Margarita”
A book that gripped me from the first to the last page. Two stories that appear to have nothing to do with each other–the devil comes to totalitarian Moscow and Jesus has a discussion with Pontius Pilate–are woven into a wonderful whole.
Paulo Coelho: “The Alchemist”
“The name of the boy was Santiago.” This is how the book starts, a work that has changed the lives of many people. To date the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho has sold 210 million copies of his books which encourage people to face their reason for being. Paulo Coelho and Andreas Salcher have been friends since 2003. They each have bonded strongly with the former abbot of Melk Abbey, Burkhard Ellegast.
Hermann Hesse: “The Glass Bead Game”
This wonderful book about mankind’s eternal struggle to fulfill its vocation is, unfortunately, being read by too many people at too young an age. Quite rightly, though, its fascination still allures every generation. The fictitious place “Waldzell”, where each year a selected group of people, the Glass Bead Players, meet to create an intellectual-spiritual work of art whose effect reaches far beyond the circle of players, serves as a metaphor for the Waldzell Meetings at Melk Abbey.
Stefan Zweig: “Joseph Fouché”
Zweig’s fascinating “Portrait of a Political Person” depicts the French minister of police who is completely addicted to power. It appeared in 1929 – a timly harbinger of gathering horror.
Franz Werfel: “The Star of the Unborn”
A masterpiece about the basic questions of human beings written as a travel book in a fictitious, apparently ideal world. Franz Werfel finished this book just a few days before his death.