Prolific and highly acclaimed Viennese author Friederike Mayröcker was born on 12 December 1924 as the only daughter of Franz Mayröcker, a teacher, and his wife Friederike, housewife and designer of textile objects and dolls. Until the age of ten, Mayröcker spent the summer holidays at the farmhouse of her paternal grandparents in the village of Deinzendorf in the Weinviertel, a region in Lower Austria. The author frequently identified expulsion from this ‘Garden of Eden’ in 1935 as the trigger for her creative writing (the family had to sell the farmhouse for financial reasons).

Friederike Mayröcker, 2015
Friederike Mayröcker, 2015 (Photo: Franz Morgenbesser via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0)

Her parents’ precarious financial situation prevented Mayröcker from studying History of Art and German at Vienna University. Instead, in 1941, Mayröcker embarked on a two-year commercial apprenticeship. Her intensive reading of English and French literature and interest in classical music helped her overcome intellectual frustration. In 1942, Mayröcker was enlisted as an assistant secretary for the Luftwaffe. She attended English-language courses at a private school in the evenings and passed the state examination in English in 1945. After the war, Mayröcker started working as an English teacher in Viennese secondary schools. Due to her family's continuing precarious financial situation, Mayröcker maintained this profession until 1969, when she took the plunge and started earning her living as a freelance author.

The beginnings of Mayröcker’s writing date back to 1939. Her own reports on when, where, and how she began to write are highly contradictory. What is certain, however, is that she would continue writing for the rest of her life. She made her debut in 1946 with poems in the new literary journal Plan. This small-scale, short-lived journal, in which other trailblazing post-war authors published (notably Paul Celan) sought to connect young Austrian authors with the historical avant-garde and modernist literature, especially the French Surrealists. In the same period, Mayröcker made the acquaintance of Hans Weigel and his circle of more conservative authors, as well as of Andreas Okopenko and the progressive future members of the Wiener Gruppe. At the 1954 Innsbrucker Jugendkulturwochen, Mayröcker met the poet Ernst Jandl. The date marked the beginning of an intense and lifelong partnership between two artists who differed greatly in their poetics and posture, and which lasted until Jandl’s death in 2000.

1956 saw the publication of Mayröcker’s first book-length volume of prose texts, Larifari. Ein konfuses Buch [Airy Fairy. A Confused Book]. She published some of her ‘free’ or ‘total’ poems in the series rot (1964), published by Max Bense, the Stuttgart theoretician of concrete poetry, which foregrounds the visual and acoustic aspects of language. Literary journals played an important part in this phase of Mayröcker’s career, as for many authors in post-war Austria and she regularly published in the influential manuskripteprotokolle, and neue texte.

The German institutional context would also become increasingly important in the following years. Rowohlt and Luchterhand Verlag, both dedicated to new Austrian literature, provided Mayröcker with opportunities for publication. Rowohlt published Tod durch Musen. Poetische Texte [Death by Muses. Poetic Texts], an anthology with poems spanning a period over twenty years in 1966, followed by two prose anthologies, Minimonsters Traumlexikon. Texte in Prosa [Minimonster’s Dream Lexicon. Texts in Prose] in 1968 and Fantom Fan [Phantom Fan] in 1971. Luchterhand published the next volume, Arie auf tönernen Füßen. Metaphysisches Theater [Aria on Clay Feet. Metaphysical Theatre] in 1972, as well as je ein umwölkter gipfel. erzählung [with each clouded peak. short-story] in 1973. Mayröcker left Luchterhand in 1975 mainly for political reasons (she did not agree with its explicit leftist orientation), and has published with Suhrkamp ever since. Her motivation for switching is also reflected in her poetics: in contrast to her fellow Luchterhand authors, Mayröcker did not define her poetics as a form of resistance against the restorative Austrian cultural politics.

During this period, Mayröcker gained recognition in another medium: the radio play. This move aligned with the growing popularity of the radiophonic medium at the time. Fünf Mann Menschen [Five Man Humanity] (1971), co-authored with Ernst Jandl, received the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden, a renowned award for the genre of the radio play. In the next ten years, Mayröcker would write eighteen radio plays on her own and four more with Jandl. Most of these texts were commissioned by prominent radio studios that were, at the time, committed to radio plays and acoustic art. For example, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Südwestfunk, and Bayerischer Rundfunk provided the opportunity to experiment with the new medium of stereophony and, on a more mundane level, to earn more money than with printed publications. Mayröcker was particularly drawn to this medium because of the relationship between language, sound, and acoustic experience, and she continued to write for radio and to authorise radiophonic adaptations of her texts.

Quitting her teaching job in 1969 (the same year as Jandl) eventually allowed Mayröcker to fully concentrate on her activities as a writer. This turning point in her career provided the momentum for her impressive literary output, resulting in numerous volumes of both poetry and prose. It also facilitated the creation of a stronger artistic network in the following decades, with long lecture tours abroad (to the USA, the Soviet Union, France, and Italy), longer stays in Berlin (in 1973 and 1993), and regular attendance at initiatives such as the yearly Bielefelder Colloquium Neue Poesie. She also embarked on an increasing number of collaborative projects, especially creating literary dialogues with painters and, to a lesser extent, filmmakers. In 1988, the Friederike Mayröcker archives were established in the Vienna Library in the city’s Town Hall.

Until the early 1970s Mayröcker’s literature was highly experimental in nature. It explored the tension between a playful and freely associative poetics on the one hand, and concentrated discipline on the other. Mythological elements, motifs from fairy tales, and quotations from popular culture were adapted and deconstructed. In addition, Mayröcker experimented with semantics (instructions, manuals, encyclopaedic writing etc.) and the conventional organising principles of grammar (interpunction, paratactic syntax, deixis etc.). However, imagination and intuition always remained prominent, distinguishing her experiments from the more strict and objectified endeavours of many of her contemporaries.

The short-story je ein umwölkter gipfel  [with each clouded peak] (1973) saw Mayröcker place a stronger focus on ‘unconventional story telling’ (Mayröcker cited in Schmidt, 1984: 268). She turned to the patterns and motifs of autobiographical writing and the rendering of subjective cognition, such as confessional first-person narrators, themes such as childhood memories and romantic relationships, everyday anecdotes, letters, conversations with friends, and the suggestion of homely intimacy. The experimental character of her writing remained evident: the micronarrative elements did not develop into complete stories. Her writing did not aim at representing the life of the author or narrator but tried to present the consciousness, emotions, and memories of an authorial 'I', who experiences life in a two-fold aesthetic way: through all the senses (aesthesis) and through the appropriation of pre-existing art works, texts, and discursive material (aesthetics).

Mayröcker adapted various genres of autobiographical narration – such as the life journey (Reise durch die Nacht, 1984 [Night Train, 1992]), the testimony (mein Herz mein Zimmer mein Name [my heart my room my name] of 1988, the diary (brütt oder Die seufzenden Gärten which appeared in 1998 [Brütt, or, The sighing gardens, 2008], the requiem (Die Abschiede of 1987 [Goodbyes]), Requiem für Ernst Jandl (2001) [Requiem for Ernst Jandl, 2018]), and the epistolary novel (Paloma of 2008 [Paloma]) –  in a rhetorical gesture of repetition and variation. Mayröcker explicitly links this approach to the philosophy of Jacques Derrida. His texts, especially ‘La parole soufflée’ (1965; published under the same title in the English-language essay collection Writing and Difference [1978]) and La Carte postale: de Socrate à Freud et au-delà (The Post CardFrom Socrates to Freud and Beyond, 1980 [1987]) reverberate throughout her work as endlessly re-appropriated intertexts. Mayröcker’s poems demonstrate in a more concentrated manner a similar endeavour to transform the ‘experientiality’ of the world into language, by fusing experimental calculation with transgressive pathos. Her adaptation of hymnal and elegiac poetic forms and lyrical conventions, such as the dialogical address of the ‘you’, grounds an intense poetics of affect that energetically switches between pain, mourning, melancholia, and euphoria. A rich historical continuum opens up here, linking Mayröcker’s writing with poetry from Goethe’s Sturm und Drang period and the early Romantic era right up to the lyrical expressionism of Else Lasker-Schüler and Rilke’s elegies. In the anthology Scardanelli [Scardanelli] (2009), a dialogue with the Romantic poet Hölderlin, Mayröcker explicitly situates herself in such a continuum.

Whereas Mayröcker had upheld the distinction between prose and poetry to some degree in previous decades, her most recent work – the trilogy études [studies] (2013), cahier [notebook] (2014), fleurs [flowers] (2016) – resolutely transgresses these categories, incorporating both prose and poetry in a constant metamorphosis of generic boundaries, resisting, once again, any trace of stagnation or ending.

Mayröcker was awarded numerous prizes for her writing, including the Georg Trakl Prize for Poetry (1977), Great Austrian State Literary Prize of the Federal Ministry for Teaching and Art (1982), the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (1993), the Great Literary Prize of the Bavarian Academy of Arts (1996), the Else Lasker Schüler Prize for Poetry (1996), an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bielefeld (2000), the Georg Büchner Prize (2001), an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Innsbruck (2015), the Austrian Book Prize (2016), and the Günter Eich Prize for Radio Drama (2017).

Friederike Mayröcker died on 4 June 2021. 

Compiled by Inge Arteel (Brussels)

Bibliography

Novels

Die Abschiede (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980)

Das Herzzerreissende der Dinge (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985)

Mein Herz, mein Zimmer, mein Name (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988)

Stilleben (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991)

brütt oder Die seufzenden Gärten (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998)

Short Prose Texts and Sketches

Larifari: Ein konfuses Buch (Vienna: Bergland, 1956)

Minimonsters Traumlexikon: Texte in Prosa (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1968)

Fantom Fan (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1971)

je ein umwölkter gipfel (Darmstadt and Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1973)

Augen wie Schaljapin bevor er starb, with illustrations by Peter Pongratz (Dornbirn: Vorarlberger Verlagsanstalt, 1974)

Das Licht in der Landschaft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1975)

schriftungen oder gerüchte aus dem jenseits (Pfaffenweiler: Pfaffenweiler Presse, 1975)

Fast ein Frühling des Markus M. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976)

Heisse Hunde, with graphics by Ernst Jandl (Pfaffenweiler: Pfaffenweiler Presse, 1977)

rot ist unten (Vienna and Munich: Jugend und Volk, 1977)

Heiligenanstalt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978)

Tochter der Bahn (Düsseldorf: Eremiten-Presse, 1979)

Reise durch die Nacht (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984)

Rosengarten (Pfaffenweiler: Pfaffenweiler Presse 1984)

der Donner des Stillhaltens (Vienna and Graz: Droschl, 1986)

Gang durchs Dorf: Fingerzeig (Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz, 1992)

Nimbus der Kappe, with the artist Olaf Nicolai (Rudolstadt: Burgart-Presse, 1993)

Betblumen: (ein) mein Lieblingstod, with Tobias Raphael (Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz, 1993)

Lection (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994)

Requiem für Ernst Jandl (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001)

Die kommunizierenden Gefäße (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003)

Und ich schüttelte einen Liebling (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005)

Paloma (Franfkurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008)

ich bin in der Anstalt: Fusznoten zu einem nichtgeschriebenen Werk (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2010)

vom Umhalsen der Sperlingswand, oder 1 Schumannwahnsinn (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011)

ich sitze nur GRAUSAM da (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2012)

Poetry

Tod durch Musen: Poetische Texte (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1966)

Blaue Erleuchtungen: Erste Gedichte (Düsseldorf: Eremiten-Presse, 1973)

In langsamen Blitzen (Berlin: Literarisches Colloquium, 1974)

Schwarze Romanzen (Pfaffenweiler: Pfaffenweiler Presse, 1981)

Gute Nacht, guten Morgen. Gedichte 1978 – 1981 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982)

Zittergaul (Ravensburg: Maier, 1989)

Blumenwerk: ländliches Journal, Deinzendorf (Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz, 1992)

Benachbarte Metalle (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998)

Liebesgedichte (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 2006)

Scardanelli (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2009)

Von den Umarmungen (Berlin: Insel, 2012)

études (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2013)

cahier (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014)

fleurs (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2016)

Pathos und Schwalbe (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2018)

Published Radio Plays

Fünf Mann Menschen, with Ernst Jandl (Neuwied and Berlin: Luchterhand Typoskript, 1971)

Arie auf tönernen Füszen: Metaphysisches Theater (Neuwied and Berlin: Luchterhand Typoskript, 1972)

Schwarmgesang: Szenen für die poetische Bühne (Berlin: Rainer, 1978)

‘Nada. Nichts’ (Spectaculum 53, 1992, pp. 101-45)

Das zu Sehende, das zu Hörende (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997)

Translations into Foreign Languages

English

Night Train [Translation of Reise durch die Nacht by Beth Bjorklund] (Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press, 1992)

Heiligenanstalt (Translation of Heiligenanstalt by Rosmarie Waldrop] (Providence, RI: Burning Deck, 1994)

In the Blue Mountain Evening [Translation of Blaue Erleuchtungen by Lesley Lendrum] (Edinburgh: Morning Star Publications, 1996)

With Each Clouded Peak [Translation of je ein umwölkter gipfel by Rosemarie Waldrop and Harriett Watts] (Los Angeles, CA: Sun & Moon, 1998) 

Peck Me Up, My Wing [Translation of selected works by Friederike Mayröcker by Mary Burns] (Boulder, CO: Smokeproof Press, 2000)

Raving Language [Translation of selected poems from 1946 to 2005 by Richard Dove] (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2007)

Brütt, or, The sighing Gardens [Translation of brütt oder Die seufzenden Gärten by Roslyn Theobald] (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2008)

Requiem for Ernst Jandl [Translation of Requiem für Ernst Jandl by Roslyn Theobald] (London: Seagull Books, 2018)

Criticism

Acker, Robert: ‘Ernst Jandl and Friederike Mayröcker: A Study of Modulation and Crisis’ (World Literature Today 55.4, 1981, pp. 597-602)

Amstutz, Nathalie: ‘Mit fremden Federn: Zur Darstellung von Autorschaft bei Friederike Mayröcker’ in Fremdverstehen in Sprache, Literatur und Medien ed. by Ernest W.B. Hess-Lüttich, Christoph Siegrist, and Stefan Bodo Würffel (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996, pp. 283-94)

—: Autorschaftsfiguren: Inszenierung und Reflexion von Autorschaft bei Musil, Bachmann und Mayröcker (Vienna: Böhlau, 2004)

Arnold, Heinz Ludwig [ed.]: Friederike Mayröcker (Munich: Text + Kritik, 1984)

Arteel, Inge, ‘Subjektivität, Wiederholung und Verwandlung in Friederike Mayröckers Prosabuch brütt oder Die Seufzenden Gärten’ (Trans: Internet-Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften 16, 2006, n.p.) available online at http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/02_1/arteel16.htm

—: Gefaltet, entfaltet: Strategien der Subjektwerdung in Friederike Mayröckers Prosa 1988-1998 (Biefeld: Aisthesis-Verlag, 2007)

—: Friederike Mayröcker (Hanover: Wehrhahn, 2012)

—: ‘Non-Sovereign Voices in Friederike Mayröcker’s Aural Texts’ (Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 15.1, 2017, pp. 135-50)

Arteel, Inge and Müller, Heidy Margrit [eds.]: ‘Rupfen in fremden Gärten’: Intertextualität im Schreiben Friederike Mayröckers (Bielefeld: Aisthesis-Verlag, 2002)

Bjorklund, Beth: ‘On the Alleged Incomprehensibility of Modern Poetry: Friederike Mayröcker’s Experimental Forms’ (Österreich in Amerikanischer Sicht: Das Österreichbild im Amerikanischen Schulunterricht 2, 1981, pp. 1-9)

—: ‘Friedericke Mayröcker and the Austrian Avant-Garde’ (Poesis: A Journal of Criticism 5.3, 1984, pp. 48-67)

—: ‘Friederike Mayröcker’ in Major Figures of Contemporary Austrian Literature ed. by Donald G. Daviau (New York: Peter Lang, 1987, pp. 313-36).

—: ‘Friederike Mayröcker’ in Austrian Fiction Writers After 1914 ed. by James Hardin and Donald Daviau (Detroit: Gale, 1989, pp. 247-51)

—: ‘Mayröcker’s Fictional Autobiography’ in Out from the Shadows: Essays on Contemporary Austrian Women Writers and Filmmakers ed. by Margarethe Lamb-Pfaffelberger (Riverside, CA: Ariadne, 1997, pp. 55-65)

—: ‘Mysteries of the Subject: Friederike Mayröcker’s Reise durch die Nacht’ in Modern Austrian Prose: Interpretations and Insights ed. by Paul F. Dvorak (Riverside, CA: Ariadne, 2001, pp. 247-68)

Block, Friedrich W.: ‘“Schreiben= Lebensakt+ Abstraktum”: Zur Verbindung von Kunst und Leben bei Friederike Mayröcker’ (Kühn, 2002, pp. 241-68)

Braun, Stephan, ‘Allmählich Tritt fassen: Friederike Mayröckers Fusznoten-Poetik’ (Weimarer Beiträge 58.2, 2012, pp. 262-75)

Cercignani, Fausto and Sara Barni [eds.]: Friederike Mayröcker (special issue of Studia Austriaca, 2001)

Doran, Sabine: ‘Writing van Gogh through Francis Bacon: Friederike Mayröcker’s Non-Human Aesthetics’ (Gegenwartsliteratur 10, 2011, pp. 116-38)

Ecker, Gisela: ‘Gender in the Work of Grief and Mourning: Contemporary Requiems in German Literature’ in Women and Death: Representations of Female Victims and Perpetrators in German Culture, 1500-2000 ed. by Helen Fronius and Anna Linton (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2008, pp. 203-19)

de Felip, Eleonore: ‘“Hearing the Speechless”: Empathy with Animals in Contemporary German Lyric Poetry’ in Rethinking Empathy through Literature ed. by Meghan Marie Hammond and Sue J. Kim (New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 93-106)

Hainz, Martin A.: ‘Schwarze Milch zu schreiben: Paul Celan und Friederike Mayröcker’ (Weimarer Beiträge 52.1, 2005, pp. 5-19)

Hammerschmid, Michael: ‘Stilleben: Reflexionen zur Ding-, Schreib- und Sprachwahrnehmung bei Friederike Mayröcker und mit Francis Ponge’ (Etudes Germaniques 69.4, 2014, pp. 545-58)

van Hulle, Dirk: ‘Beckett-Joyce-Mayröcker “und kein Ende”’ in Beckett’s Literary Legacies ed. by Matthew Feldman and Mark Nixon (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, pp. 112-28)

Jandl, Ernst: ‘Die poetische Syntax in den Gedichten von Friederike Mayröcker’ (Modern Austrian Literature 12.3/4, 1979, pp. 237-65)

—: ‘Versuch, zu einem Gedicht von Friederike Mayrocker etwas zu sagen’ (Modern Austrian Literature 12.3/4, 1979, pp. 267-71)

Kahn, Lisa: ‘Friederike Mayröcker und Goya’ (Literatur und Kritik 207-08, 1986, pp. 298-304)

Kasper, Helga: Apologie einer magischen Alltäglichkeit: eine erzähltheoretische Untersuchung der Prosa von Friederike Mayröcker anhand von ‘mein Herz mein Zimmer mein Name’ (Innsbruck: Institut für Germanistik, 1999)

—: ‘Polyphone Aussagestruktur im Werk Friederike Mayröckers’ (Cahiers d’Etudes Germaniques 37, 1999, pp. 163-72)

Kastberger, Klaus: Reinschrift des Lebens: Friederike Mayröckers Reise durch die Nacht (Vienna/Cologne: Böhlau, 2000)

—: ‘Friederike Mayröcker’ in Deutschsprachige Lyriker des 20. Jahrhunderts ed. by Ursula Heukenkamp and Peter Geist (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 2007, pp. 418-28)

—: ‘Geheimnisse des Archivs: Friederike Mayröcker und ihre Wohnung’ (Etudes Germaniques 69.4, 2014, pp. 517-26)

Kastberger, Klaus and Schmidt-Dengler, Wendelin [eds.]: In Böen wechselt mein Sinn: Zu Friederike Mayröckers Literatur (Vienna: Sonderzahl, 1996)

Kraller, Bernhard [ed.]: Friederike Mayröcker: Die herrschenden Zustände (Wespennest [special issue], 1999)

Kramer, Andreas: ‘Inszenierungen des unendlichen Gesprächs: Zu Friederike Mayröckers langer Prosa’ in ‘Other’ Austrians: Post-1945 Austrian Women’s Writing ed. by Allyson Fiddler (Oxford: Peter Lang, 1998, pp. 115-27)

Krebs, Corinna: ‘Theorie und Praxis in der Prosa Friederike Mayröckers’ in Interpretation, Beobachtung, Kommunikation: Avancierte Literatur und Kunst im Rahmen von Konstruktivismus,Dekonstruktion und Systemtheorie ed. by Oliver Jahrhaus and Bernd Scheffer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999, pp. 131-46)

Kühn, Renate: Der poetische Imperativ: Interpretationen experimenteller Lyrik (Bielefeld: Aisthesis-Verlag, 1997)

— [ed.]: Friederike Mayröcker oder das ‘Innere des Sehens’: Studien zu Lyrik, Hörspiel und Prosa (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2002)

Kunz, Edith Anna: ‘Erinnerung und Erzählstruktur: Marlen Haushofer und Friederike Mayröcker’ in ‘Eine geheime Schrift aus diesem Splitterwerk enträtseln …’: Marlen Haushofers Werk im Kontext ed. by Anke Bosse and Clemens Ruthner (Francke, 2000, pp. 311-22).

— [ed.]: Verwandlungen: Zur Poetologie des Übergangs in der späten Prosa Friederike Mayröckers (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2004)

Lartillot, Françoise, Le Née, Aurélie, and Pfabigan, Alfred [eds.]: ‘Einzelteilchen aller Menschengehirne’: Subjekt und Subjektivität in Friederike Mayröckers (Spät-)Werk (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2012)

Le Née, Aurélie: La poésie de Friederike Mayröcker: Une ‘œuvre ouverte’ (Berne: Peter Lang, 2013)

Lindemann, G: ‘“… und um mich zu lindern… ein Frühlingsgrab”: Anmerkungen zu einigen Texten von Friederike Mayröcker’ (Literatur und Kritik 165-66, 1982, pp. 64-73)

Lughofer, Johann Georg [ed.]: Friederike Mayröcker: Interpretationen, Kommentare, Didaktisierungen (Vienna: Praesens, 2017)

Mayer, Mathias, and Friederike Mayer: ‘Das Schreiben und der Tod bei Friederike Mayröcker’ in Wiener Avantgarde: Einst und Jetzt ed. by Walter Buchebner (Vienna: Böhlau, 1990, pp. 32-43)

Melzer, Gerhard and Schwar, Stefan [eds.]: Friederike Mayröcker (Graz/Vienna: Droschl, 1999)

Paul, Georgina: ‘Unschuld, du Licht meiner Augen: Elke Erb in the Company of Friederike Mayröcker in the Aftermath of German Unification’ in Schaltstelle: Neue deutsche Lyrik im Dialog ed. by Karen Leeder (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007, pp. 139-62)

Pauler, Monika: Bewußtseinssstimmen: Friederike Mayröckers auditive Texte: Hörspiele, Radioadaptionen und 'Prosa-Libretti', 1967-2005 (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2011)

Raß, Michaela: Bilderlust—Sprachbild: Das Rendezvous der Künste: Friederike Mayröckers Kunst der Ekphrasis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014)

Riess-Beger, Daniela [ed.]: Lebensveranstaltung: Erfindungen Findungen einer Sprache – Friederike Mayröcker (Vienna: Dokumentationsstelle für neue österreichische Literatur, 1994)

—: Lebensstudien: poetische Verfahrensweisen in Friederike Mayröckers Prosa (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1995)

Schmidt, Siegfried J.: Friederike Mayröcker (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984)

—: ‘Erzählen ohne Geschichte: F. Mayröcker oder ein Exempel einer konstruktivistischen Narratologie’ (Zeitschrift für Germanistik 10.4, 1989, pp. 397-405)

Schmidt-Dengler, Wendelin: ‘“ich lebe ich schreibe”: Friederike Mayröckers mein Herz mein Zimmer mein Name’ (German Quarterly 63.3/4, 1990, pp. 421-28)

Schmitthenner, Hansjörg: ‘“Eine Stelle, wo vorher nichts da war”–Bemerkungen zu dem Hörspiel Fünf Mann Menschen von Ernst Jandls und Friederike Mayröcker’ in Ernst Jandl Materialienbuch ed. by Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (Darmstadt and Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1982, pp. 95-109)

Schöningh, Klaus: ‘In Flandern, Feldern, nahe Picardie: Vermutungen über die akustische Poesie von Friederike Mayröcker’ in Hörspielmacher: Autorenporträts und Essays ed. by Klaus Schöningh (Konigstein: Athenäum, 1983, pp. 270-78)

Schweiger, Hanes: ‘Samuel Beckett and Friederike Mayröcker: Attempts at Writing the Self’ (Samuel Beckett Today 14, 2004, pp. 147-60)

Schwieren, Alexander: ‘Alterswerk als Schicksal: Max Frisch, Friederike Mayröcker und die Poetologie des “Alters” in der neueren Literatur’ (Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 2012, 290-305)

Strohmaier, Alexandra: Logos, Leib und Tod. Studien zur Prosa Friederike Mayröckers (Munich: Fink, 2008)

—[ed.]: Buchstabendelirien: Zur Literatur Friederike Mayröckers (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2009)

Suchy, Victor: ‘Poesie und Poiesis, dargestellt am Werke Friederike Mayrockers’ in Die andere Welt: Aspekte der osterreichischen Literatur des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts ed. by Kurt Bartsch, Dietmar Goltschnigg, Gerhard Melzer et. al. (Bern and Munich: Francke, 1979, pp. 341-58)

Venske, Regula: Das Verschwinden des Mannes in der weiblichen Schreibmaschine: Männerbilder in der Literatur von Frauen (Hamburg: Luchterhand, 1991)

Interviews/in the Media

‘Es ist ein einziges Chaos’ (Spiegel, 26 October 2001) available online at http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/friederike-mayroecker-es-ist-ein-einziges-chaos-a-164579.html

‘Friederike Mayröcker erhält Büchner-Preis’ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27 October 2001) available online at http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/literatur-friederike-mayroecker-erhaelt-buechner-preis-140180.html

Bjorklund, Beth: ‘Radical Transformation and Magical Synthesis: Interview with Friederike Mayröcker’ (Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing 25.2, 1982, pp. 222-28)

Bossauer-Groß, Christine: ‘Interview mit Friederike Mayröcker’ (Schau ins Blau, 9 January 2018) available online at https://www.schauinsblau.de/?article=572

Breitenstein, Andreas, and Paul Jandl: ‘Schreiben oder vor die Hunde gehen: Gespräch mit der Büchner-Preisträgerin Friederike Mayröcker’ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 27 October 2001, pp. 49-50)

Combrink, Thomas: ‘Interview mit Friederike Mayröcker: “Die Kunst kennt keine Indiskretion”’ (Lili 6, 2001, n.p.) available online at https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/lili/forschung/projekte/archiv/zeitung/6mayroecker.htm

Gerstl, Elfriede: ‘Die sanfte Wilde: Eine Hommage an Friederike Mayröcker zum 70sten’ (EMMA, 1 November 1994) available online at http://www.emma.de/artikel/die-sanfte-wilde-264189

Graber, Renate: ‘Mayröcker: “Ich schreibe um mein Leben”’ (Der Standard, 23 April 2016) available online at https://derstandard.at/2000035216000/Mayroecker-Ich-schreibe-um-mein-Leben 

Haberl, Tobias: ‘Ich bin erst mit Mitte 70 ein wirklicher Mensch geworden’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, 19 September 2012) available online at https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/literatur/ich-bin-erst-mit-mitte-70-ein-wirklicher-mensch-geworden-79193. Translated as ‘A Conversation with Friederike Mayröcker’ by Marion Endt-Jones (PN Review 41.3, 2015, pp. 29-32)

Jandl, Ernst: ‘Ich bin ja eigentlich gegen den Tod [Interview]’ (Die Welt, 17 October 2013)

Kraller, Bernhard: ‘“In diesem letzten Frühjahr”: Bernhard Kraller im Gespräch mit Friederike Mayröcker’ (Wespennest 125.1, 2002, pp. 74-79)

Larson, Jonathan: ‘Friederike Mayröcker’ (Bomb Magazine, 8 January 2018) available online at https://bombmagazine.org/articles/friederike-mayrocker/

Liebers, Peter: ‘Gespräch mit Friederike Mayröcker’ (Sinn und Form 6, 1987, pp. 1259-64)

Mader, Barbara: ‘Die Welt bleibt ein Rätsel’ (Kurier, 17 December 2014) available online at https://kurier.at/kultur/friederike-mayroecker-die-welt-bleibt-ein-raetsel/102.997.781

Mayröcker, Friederike: ‘Dankrede zum Georg-Büchner-Preis 2001’ available online at https://www.deutscheakademie.de/en/awards/georg-buechner-preis/friederike-mayroecker

Nischkauer, Astrid: ‘Friederike Mayröcker im Interview’ (FixPoetry 21 March 2017) available online at https://www.fixpoetry.com/feuilleton/interviews/friederike-mayroecker/astrid-nischkauer/friederike-mayroecker-im-interview-mit-astrid-nischkauer

Pfoser, Kristina: ‘Die Dichterin Friederike Mayröcker, 90, über ihren Schreibrausch, die Musik und den Tod’ (Spiegel, 29 December 2014) available online at http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/kulturspiegel/d-130988044.html

Radisch, Iris: ‘Die Welt ist so reich: Interview mit Friederike Mayröcker’ (Die Zeit, 16 December 2004) available online at https://www.zeit.de/2004/52/L-Mayr_9acker

Schmidt, Siegfried J.: ‘“Es schießt zusammen”: Gespräch mit Friederike Mayröcker (März 1983)’ in Friederike Mayröcker ed. by Siegfried J Schmidt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984, pp. 260-83)

Serke, Jürgen: ‘Friederike Mayröcker: “Von kommenden Dingen kehren die Schiffe zurück”’ in Frauen schreiben: Ein neues Kapitel deutschprachiger Literatur (Hamburg: Gruner und Jahr, 1979, pp. 102-21)

Ziegler, Senta: ‘Ich lebe unter ganz wenigen Figuren: Senta Ziegler interviewte Friederike Mayröcker’ (Literatur und Kritik, 181-182, 1984, pp. 74-79)