Dubbed "Magic Wolfi" by his fans, Wolfgang Bauer has been one of Austria's most talked-about writers since the early 1960s. He has also helped change the image of his hometown, Graz. Traditionally considered staid, conservative, bourgeois, and rather provincial, in the 1960s, Graz became a center of avant-garde literature when the Forum Stadtpark, an abandoned café in the city park, opened as a cultural center. Literature soon dominated the Forum's activities, and Bauer played a major role in establishing the reputation of Graz as the "secret capital" of German-language literature. One of the Forum's most noteworthy accomplishments is the sponsorship of the avant-garde journal manuskripte, edited by Bauer's colleague and friend Alfred Kolleritsch. Bauer's first creative activity was with the Forum Stadtpark, and many of his plays were first published in manuskripte.

Born in Graz on 18 March 1941, the only child of Rolf and Edith Maidl Bauer, both...