The special exhibition at the Literature Museum of the Austrian National Library: “Where we come from. Literature and Origins” – on show from  April 2025 to 15 Feb 2026 – tells of identity, of origins and reinventing ourselves – expressed in literature and a gallery of things.

Where we come from is a matter of chance, and yet it has a lasting impact on us. Our origin can give us support or be a burden. Those who want to or have to escape it often return to their own roots one day. This special exhibition tells of growing up, leaving and returning, of remembering and reinventing ourselves. A gallery of things presents personal objects that connect writers with their origins. Whether an analogue tube television, a copper bracelet from the Congo or an Iranian passport – our origins show themselves in things, and it is also of these objects, which are as ordinary as they are extraordinary, and always poignant, that literature speaks.