Michael Amon (Vienna, February 25, 1954 – Gmunden, November 11, 2018) was a prolific Austrian writer and well-regarded political commentator. He wrote novels, dramas, screenplays for Austrian TV, as well as some 500 essays and feuilletons for Austrian and German newspapers.
In the spirit of Kurt Tucholsky and Alfred Polgar, Amon wrote candidly and humorously of the link between Austria’s past and its contemporary daily life. His writing comprises factual analyses of concrete instances in a critical, largely nonpartisan manner, e.g., the abuse of Austrian youth under the Catholic Church, economic inequality, and the destructiveness of unrestricted neoliberal capitalism.
Amon first found critical acclaim with his novel Yquem (2002). His four-volume, initially censured crime novel Bibliothek der Vergeblichkeit (2012-2016) offers a rather transparent persiflage of the corruption of the 2000 ÖVP-FPÖ coalition. Panikroman (2014) continues the author’s satirical and skeptical look at unrestrained financial markets in contemporary Austria.
Amon’s commentaries and essays, e.g., his volume Kollateralschäden: Essays zur blau-schwarzen Wende in Österreich (2005), for which he received the Bruno-Kreisky-Anerkennungspreis, frequently targeted the failure of the dominant political parties and the social Demontage in contemporary Austrian culture.
Amon was a member of the Grazer Autorinnen Autorenversammlung, and a board member of the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Kulturpolitik and the Österreichische P.E.N.-Club. (2019)