Despite Everything: The Oscar Bronner Story

The Austrian Cultural Forum hosts this book presentation of the English language e-book edition of Despite Everything. The Oscar Bronner Story. The biography by author and journalist JM Stim was originally published in German in 2008, and has recently been updated and translated into English on the occasion of Oscar Bronner's 70th birthday. It also now features a new introduction by best-selling author Frederic Morton.

Oscar Bronner was born in Haifa in 1943 as the eldest son of the famed Austrian cabaret singer and composer Gerhard Bronner. Bronner moved to Austria with his family at the age of five. In 1969, he founded the monthly economic journal trend and the news magazine profil. After he was forced to sell them, Bronner moved to New York City in 1974, where he spent a decade living and working as a painter and sculptor. He returned to Vienna and in 1988 founded the national daily newspaper Der Standard, of which he remains the publisher to this day.

The participants in the event will be Oscar Bronner, author JM Stim, editor David S. Benjamin, writer Frederic Morton, and John R. MacArthur, the president and publisher of Harper's Magazine. The event will be moderated by Martin Rauchbauer, the director of Deutsches Haus at NYU.

About the participants:
JM Stim (born Klaus Josef Stimeder, in 1975) is a New York-based writer and journalist. The former war correspondent and sportswriter founded and published the acclaimed Austrian political magazine DATUM. His 2011 book, Here is Berlin, a book-length essay on the German capital, has been hailed by critics and reviewers as "the definitive essay about the world's most buzzed about city" and has been translated into four languages.

David S. Benjamin graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in American Studies. He has worked as an actor, a magician, unloading trucks, selling cigars, pens, vintage clothing, as a clerk in a municipal records office, a reference librarian, an archivist, a rare books and documents specialist, fashion consultant, and as a freelance writer. He holds graduate degrees in Library and Information Science as well as in History. He divides his time between consulting and teaching at a fashion-college in Manhattan. His writing has appeared in both print and on the web. He lives in New York.

Frederic Morton was born in Vienna in 1924 and lives in New York. He is the author of twelve books, two of which, The Rothschilds and A Nervous Splendor, were National Book Award finalists. The Rothschilds was made into a Tony Award-winning musical. Morton's work has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 1965 as well as in The Best American Essays 2003. Morton wrote a portrait of Oscar Bronner for the ACFNY's 5th issue of transforum, which is available online.

John R. MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper's Magazine, is an award-winning journalist and author.

Martin Rauchbauer joined Deutsches Haus in April 2011 as the Director of the institution. He studied German Studies and Philosophy at the University of Vienna and has an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy and Washington D.C. School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Concentration in European Studies and International Economics. He worked as a journalist for Austrian Radio and Television (ORF) and the news magazine Format before joining the Austrian Foreign Ministry (now the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs) in 2000. From 2007 until January 2011 he was the Deputy Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City. Before that he was the Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Mexico City and a defense analyst in the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.