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Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing (CCWW)

Elfriede Jelinek

Elfriede Jelinek was born on 20 October 1946 in Mürzzuschlag, Styria. She grew up in Vienna where she later began training as a professional musician at the Conservatory (organ, piano, violin and composition). At the age of nineteen, she started writing poetry and, in 1967, published her first volume of poems, Lisas Schatten. Her poetry attracted attention and won her her first literary award. Three years later her debut novel Wir sind lockvögel, baby appeared with the renowned publisher Rowohlt.

Jelinek’s 1975 novel Die Liebhaberinnen, a satire of the genre of Heimat- and Groschenroman with a radical feminist twist, is one of her first texts to be translated into English. Jelinek experiences her real literary and media breakthrough in 1983 with Die Klavierspielerin, according to the author a ‘semi-autobiographical’ book. It is later turned into an award-winning movie by Michael Haneke starring Isabelle Huppert in the role of protagonist Erika Kohut. In 1989, Jelinek’s first and only bestseller Lust causes a media scandal because of its pornographic take on relationships. The novel is – as the Klavierspielerin – an example of Jelinek’s remarkable poetic method turning the language against itself, thus revealing the clichés and power structures of capitalist everyday life.

The years around 2000 are marked by political and public media conflict. As a reaction to the right-wing FPÖ’s success in the general elections of 1999, and the ensuing governing coalition being formed with the FPÖ, well known for its anti-immigrant and strongly nationalist political programme, Jelinek prohibits the staging of her plays in Austria for two years. She repeatedly speaks out against the FPÖ’s politics, and takes part in Christoph Schlingensiefs project ‘Chance 2000’, a protest against the politics of discrimination and restrictive immigration in force. The right wing Austrian press targets a very personal smear campaign against the author calling her a ‘Nestbeschmutzerin’  [national traitor]. In the following years, Jelinek develops a growing anxiety of appearing in public.

In 2004 Jelinek receives the highest literary honour: the Nobel Prize for Literature ‘for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power’. In the past few years, Jelinek’s extraordinary literary productivity has not diminished and she has published several dramas, a novel and a wide range of essays many of which have appeared on her website.

Elfriede Jelinek_2004 (Foto G. Huensberg_WikiCommons CC BY-SA 2.5).jpg
Elfriede Jelinek, 2004. (Photo G. Huensberg, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.5)

Jelinek has received numerous awards and prizes: the Preis des Lyrikwettbewerbs der Österreichischen Hochschülerschaft (1969); Preise der 20. Österreichischen Jugendkulturwoche Innsbruck für Lyrik und Prosa (1969); Österreichisches Staatsstipendium für Literatur (1972/3); Roswitha-Gedenkmedaille der Stadt Bad Gandersheim (1978); Drehbuchförderung des Bundesministers des Innern (1979); Würdigungspreis für Literatur des Bundesministeriums für Unterricht und Kunst (1983); Heinrich-Böll-Preis der Stadt Köln (1986); Literaturpreis des Landes Steiermark (1987); Preis der Stadt Wien (Literatur) (1989); Walter Hasenclever-Preis der Stadt Aachen (1994); Peter-Weiss-Preis der Stadt Bochum (1994); Bremer Literaturpreis (1996); Georg-Büchner-Preis der Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung Darmstadt (1998); ′manuskripte‘-Preis des Landes Steiermark (2000); Theaterpreis Berlin der Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung (2002); Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis (2002); Heinrich-Heine-Preis der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf (2002); Else-Lasker-Schüler-Dramatikerpreis des Pfalztheaters Kaiserslautern (2003); Lessing-Preis für Kritik der Lessing-Akademie Wolfenbüttel und der Braunschweiger Stiftung Nord/LB (2004); Stig Dagerman-Preis der Stig Dagerman-Gesellschaft (Schweden) (2004); Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden/Preis für Radiokunst (2004); Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis (2004); Franz-Kafka-Literaturpreis (2004); Literaturnobelpreis (2004); Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis (2009).

Compiled by Jeanine Tuschling (Hagen)

Bibliography

Prose

bukolit (Vienna: Hörroman Rhombus, 1979)

wir sind lockvögel baby! (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1970)

Michael. Ein Jugendbuch für die Infantilgesellschaft (Reinbek: Rowohlt,  1972)

Die Liebhaberinnen (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1975)

Die Ausgesperrten (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1980)

Die endlose Unschuldigkeit. Prosa-Hörspiel-Essay. (Munich: Schwiftinger Galerie Verlag, 1980)

Die Klavierspielerin (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1983)

Oh Wildnis, oh Schutz vor ihr (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1985)

Lust (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1989)

Die Kinder der Toten (Reinbek: Rowohlt,  1995)

Gier (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2000)

Neid (www.elfriedejelinek.com, 2008)

Ein Sportstück (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2004)

Drama

Theaterstücke (www.elfriedejelinek.com, 2006)

Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns; Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel); Über Tiere (Reinbek: Rowohlt,  2008)

Rein Gold: Ein Bühnenessay [stage essay] (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2013)

Poetry

Lisas Schatten (Munich: Verlag Eilers & Scheunemann, 1967)

ende / gedichte von 1966–1968 (Munich: Lyrikedition, 2000)