„He Could Only Survive by Reading” – the Image of the Father in Monika Helfer’s Novel "Daddy"

Abstract

The article focuses on the figure of the father in the novel „Daddy” by the Austrian writer Monika Helfer. In her fictional and autobiographical work, the writer presents her relashionship with her physically or mentally ‘absent’ father, whose life was marked by the trauma of World War II. Fascinated by books, her father, for whom owning books and contact with them seemed far more important than contact with his own children, remained a stranger to the writer till the end. Monika Helfer assembles the image of her father from her own memories and those of her relatives, skillfully combining memories with fiction.