Father Morgana

A literary tour-de-force from Austria’s leading cabaret artist

It’s bound to be problematic when you try to assemble all of your German-Austrian-American-Swedish-British-Persian family under the Christmas tree for once, or to celebrate Nowrūz – Persian New Year – at the beginning of spring together. It can lead to complications if you try to visit all your cousins, aunts and uncles in the summer holidays. But it will definitely end in global catastrophe if you have to keep your own father’s death a secret from his mother, because your beloved relatives are worried that Mamanbosorg, your Persian gran, won’t survive the shock. But I have to ask you for one favour: my family doesn’t know about this book and they’d be really angry if they found out I was divulging their most intimate secrets. So let’s just pretend I made the whole story up!


Michael Niavarani was born in 1968 in Vienna. In 1986 he began training as an actor with Michael Mohapp and Dany Sigel. Following many performances at the Graumann Theatre, he moved on to the Kabarett Simpl in 1989, and became its artistic director in 1993. In addition to his cabaret programme, Niavarani has appeared in numerous television series and films (Salami Aleikum, released in September 2009). He was awarded the TV audience prize Romy as most popular cabaret artist two years running, in 2007 and 2008.