Photo: Jennifer Freund
Stefan Feinig is a bilingual Austrian writer working in German and Slovene. He writes poetry, prose, and essays that combine literary experimentation, philosophical reflection, and social critique. Central themes in his work include everyday life, multilingualism, social structures, and the fragile experience of human existence in the contemporary world. Alongside his literary work, he has been active for many years as a publicist and editor for various print and online media, including boah.at.
Feinig made his literary debut in 2015 with Banalitäten des Wahnsinns, a collection of ten short stories exploring the constellations of everyday life and madness. This was followed in 2016 by the anti-crime novel Das wilde Schaf, an intertextual parody of the detective genre. In 2018, he published the bilingual poetry collection rob krožnika in obzorje / Horizont und Tellerrand, drawing on experiences from working in the hospitality industry. His bilingual book-length poem 374 (2021) explores the fragility of the human condition in a neoliberal world. In 2022, he published Vampirji svetlobe, a book about transgression in the postmodern world. His epic poem Made in China (2024) turns its attention to the often invisible people behind the products we use every day. In 2025, he published the essay Der apokalyptische Bullshit in postfaktischen Zeiten – ein Versuch über die Ära Trump, which examines the phenomenon of bullshit and the erosion of truth in the post-truth era. His most recent publication is the Slovene short story collection Pod težo miline (2026).
His writing has received numerous literary awards, including the Hohenems Literature Prize (2021), founded by Michael Köhlmeier, the Audience Prize at the Feldkirch Poetry Award (2024), and the Carinthian State Prize for Literature (2025). Feinig is a member of the Carinthian-Slovene art collective Kopp23, where he works as a dramaturge and writer. Through interdisciplinary performances, the collective explores new artistic forms of expression by bringing together literature, music, dance, textile printing, and cabaret.
