Book presented

How a house sale became great literature

Jaqueline Kornmüller and Kat Menschik on the roof of the "Wasnerin" at the "Literasee" festival in Bad Aussee(Bild: Christoph Hartner)

A house in Styria as inspiration for a book: Viennese director Jaqueline Kornmüller was able to win over German star illustrator Kat Menschik for a collaboration. At the "Literasee" festival in the "Wasnerin" in Bad Aussee, they presented "Das Haus verlassen" for the first time in Styria.

"Let's say it's in Styria. Let's say it's made of stone. And let's say there's an old vine on the wall of the house that produces wonderful grapes." Jaqueline Kornmüller does not want to reveal any more about the location of the house that inspired the successful theater director (she is responsible for the "Ganymede" series at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, for example) to write her first book "Das Haus verlassen".

House tour as a "secret theater"
"When I bought the house, it had been empty for 25 years, but it was love at first sight," recalls Kornmüller. She began renovating and revitalizing it with her husband and daughter. "We loved it, but the journey time from Vienna was too long," she says.

So at some point it was time to sell: "I put an ad in the paper and lots of people came to see it. During the viewing, they all told me what they wanted and how they would like to live. And this process touched me so much that at some point these viewings felt like a secret theatrical project and I just had to record it all."

Kornmüller and Menschik - painted by Kat Menschik.(Bild: Kat Menschik)

The result was a text in which the house not only plays the leading role, but also magically begins to interfere in the process of the sale: "I was immediately interested in it," says German star illustrator Kat Menschik. She got to know Kornmüller through a theater project: "She brought a book by Haruki Murakami, which I illustrated, to the stage and used my pictures for it. When I saw the play, I got goosebumps because she not only brought the text to life, but also my illustrations. We immediately understood each other and became friends," she says.

"I immediately had images in my head"
When Kornmüller sent her the text of "Das Haus verlassen", it was immediately clear: "I want to do that," says Menschik. She has had her own "Illustrated Favorite Books" series at Galiani Verlag for years. "And I immediately had images in my head of Jaqueline's text - albeit of my own house in Brandenburg." That's why Menschik didn't want to see Kornmüller's house in Styria while she was working: "I didn't want to distort the images in my head with reality. I used my house as a model because I love it and could never imagine selling it - and this contradiction to the text adds an exciting crunch to the whole thing," she says.

Jaqueline Kornmüller's "Das Haus verlassen" (96 pages, 22.70 euros) - illustrated by Kat Menschik - has been published by Galiani Berlin.(Bild: Galiani Berlin)

"I was surprised at how similar many of the details of the houses are," says Kornmüller about the moment she saw the pictures for the first time. "But ultimately, the book isn't so much about my house and Kat's house. It's about the question of whether readers still have space in the book for their own houses. We wanted to leave that space." And Menschik adds: "Because, of course, all of our houses are always the center of our lives. But ultimately they are just shells and the real question is: how and with what do we want to fill these houses?"