Alienated and Evanescent Identities in the Contemporary World of Austrian Author Kathrin Roeggla

This chapter examines a number of works by the Austrian writer Kathrin Roeggla: wir schlafen nicht (2004), die alarmbereiten (2010), besser waere: keine (2013) and Nactsendung (2016). Roeggla shows how alienation can lead to the loss of self in a globalized work environment. Her characters - who are office and NGO workers, computer scientists, interpreters, politicians, managers and the like - live in a permanent and conscious state of selfrepresentation, which is characterized by the omipresence of the media and a sense of precariousness. Their identities increasingly dissolve and, in the end, they move like ghosts or zombies in disturbing urban landscapes and non-places. Literature thus become Roeggla's tool for denouncing dominant economic discourses and for reflecting on social identities ad on the loss of liberty.