ART NOUVEAU INFO

Elfriede Jelinek

October 20, 1946

Elfriede Jelinek was born on 20 October 1946 in Mürzzuschlag, Styria, Austria, the daughter of Olga Ilona, a personnel director, and Friedrich Jelinek. She was raised in Vienna by her Romanian-German Catholic mother and a non-observant Czech Jewish father. Her mother came from a bourgeois background, while her father was a working-class socialist.She studied art history and theater at the University of Vienna. However, she had to discontinue her studies due to an anxiety disorder, which resulted in self-isolation at her parents' house for a year. During this time, she began serious literary work as a form of therapy. After a year, she began to feel comfortable leaving the house, often with her mother. She began writing poetry at a young age. She made her literary debut with Lisas Schatten (Lisa's Shadow) in 1967, and received her first literary prize in 1969.

✿ Bukolit (1969) ✿ Bambiland (2003) ✿ Wir sind Lockvögel Baby! (1970) ✿ Greed (2006) ✿ Michael: A Young Person's Guide to Infantile Society (1972) ✿ Die Liebhaberinnen (1975) ✿ What Happened After Nora Left Her Husband (1980) ✿ The Piano Teacher (1988) ✿ Wonderful Times (1990 ✿ Lust (1992) ✿ Pillars of Society (1994) ✿ Clara, S. (1997)

Notable Literary Works

The Piano Teacher

Sypnosis

Erika Kohut teaches piano at the Conservatory in Vienna. In her early forties, she lives at home, cooped up with her mother, whose influence Erika escapes only on her regular visits to porn cinemas and peepshows. Her sexuality is an affair of morbid voyeurism and masochistic self-mutilation. Erika and life travel separate paths. Until one day, one of her students gets it into his head to seduce her...

PERVERSION

theme

Erika is a voyeur who frequents peep shows, and on one occasion catches a couple having sex in a park, being so affected that she urinates. She tells her boyfriend what to do to her during their intercourse, though she's a masochist.

AWARDS AND MERITS

2004

1996

Literaturpresi der Stadt Bremenfor Die Kinder ter Toen

Nobel Prize in Literature

1998

2004

Stig Dagerman Prize

George Buchner Prize

2002

2004

Mulheimer Dramatikerpreis for Macht Nichts

Mulheimer Dramatikerpreis for Das Werk

2004

2009

Mulheimer Dramatikerpreis for Reichnitz

Horspielpreis der Kriegsbiinden

2004

2011

Mulheimer Dramatikerpreis for Winterreise

Franz Kapka Prize

Female sexuality, sexual abuse, and the battle of the sexes in general are prominent topics in her work. Texts such as Wir sind Lockvögel, Baby! (We are Decoys, Baby!), Die Liebhaberinnen (Women as Lovers) and Die Klavierspielerin (The Piano Teacher) showcase the brutality and power play inherent in human relations in a style that is, at times, ironically formal and tightly controlled.

Genre and Style of Writing