The Most Famous

WRITERS from Austria

This page contains a list of the greatest Austrian Writers. The pantheon dataset contains 7,302 Writers, 68 of which were born in Austria. This makes Austria the birth place of the 19th most number of Writers behind Norway, and Hungary.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Austrian Writers of all time. This list of famous Austrian Writers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Austrian Writers.

1. Stefan Zweig (1881 - 1942)

With an HPI of 79.72, Stefan Zweig is the most famous Austrian Writer. His biography has been translated into 83 different languages on wikipedia.

Stefan Zweig (; German: [ˈʃtɛ.fan t͡svaɪ̯k] ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world. Zweig was raised in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. He wrote historical studies of famous literary figures, such as Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky in Drei Meister (1920; Three Masters), and decisive historical events in Decisive Moments in History (1927). He wrote biographies of Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935) and Marie Antoinette (Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman, 1932), among others. Zweig's best-known fiction includes Letter from an Unknown Woman (1922), Amok (1922), Fear (1925), Confusion of Feelings (1927), Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman (1927), the psychological novel Ungeduld des Herzens (Beware of Pity, 1939), and The Royal Game (1941). In 1934, as a result of the Nazi Party's rise in Germany and the establishment of the Standestaat regime in Austria, Zweig emigrated to England and then, in 1940, moved briefly to New York and then to Brazil, where he settled. In his final years, he would declare himself in love with the country, writing about it in the book Brazil, Land of the Future. Nonetheless, as the years passed Zweig became increasingly disillusioned and despairing at the future of Europe, and he and his wife Lotte were found dead of a barbiturate overdose in their house in Petrópolis on 23 February 1942; they had died the previous day. His work has been the basis for several film adaptations. Zweig's memoir, Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday, 1942), is noted for its description of life during the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under Franz Joseph I and has been called the most famous book on the Habsburg Empire.

2. Robert Musil (1880 - 1942)

With an HPI of 71.46, Robert Musil is the 2nd most famous Austrian Writer. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages.

Robert Musil (German: [ˈʁoːbɛʁt ˈmuːzɪl]; 6 November 1880 – 15 April 1942) was an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel, The Man Without Qualities (German: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), is generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels.

3. Paula Hitler (1896 - 1960)

With an HPI of 71.32, Paula Hitler is the 3rd most famous Austrian Writer. Her biography has been translated into 34 different languages.

Paula Hitler, also known as Paula Wolff and Paula Hitler-Wolff, (21 January 1896 – 1 June 1960) was the younger sister of Adolf Hitler and the last child of Alois Hitler and his third wife, Klara Pölzl.

4. Peter Handke (b. 1942)

With an HPI of 71.22, Peter Handke is the 4th most famous Austrian Writer. His biography has been translated into 79 different languages.

Peter Handke (German pronunciation: [ˈpeːtɐ ˈhantkə]; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience." Handke is considered to be one of the most influential and original German-language writers in the second half of the 20th century. In the late 1960s, he earned his reputation as a member of the avant-garde with such plays as Offending the Audience (1966) in which actors analyze the nature of theatre and alternately insult the audience and praise its "performance", and Kaspar (1967). His novels, mostly ultra objective, deadpan accounts of characters in extreme states of mind, include The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1970) and The Left-Handed Woman (1976). Prompted by his mother's suicide in 1971, he reflected her life in the novella A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (1972). A dominant theme of his works is the deadening effects and underlying irrationality of ordinary language, everyday reality, and rational order. Handke was a member of the Grazer Gruppe (an association of authors) and the Grazer Autorenversammlung, and co-founded the Verlag der Autoren publishing house in Frankfurt. He collaborated with director Wim Wenders, and wrote such screenplays as The Wrong Move and Wings of Desire. In 1973, he won the Georg Büchner Prize, the most important literary prize for German-language literature. In 1999, as a protest against the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Handke returned the prize money to the German Academy for Language and Literature. Handke has drawn significant controversy for his public support of Serbian nationalism in the wake of the Yugoslav Wars. Handke was born in Griffen, then in the German Reich's province Gau Carinthia. His father, Erich Schönemann, was a bank clerk and German soldier whom Handke did not meet until adulthood. His mother Maria, a Carinthian Slovene, married Bruno Handke, a tram conductor and Wehrmacht soldier from Berlin, before Peter was born. The family lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948, where Maria Handke had two more children: Peter's half-sister and half-brother. Then the family moved to his mother's home town of Griffen. Peter experienced his stepfather as more and more violent due to alcoholism. In 1954, Handke was sent to the Catholic Marianum boys' boarding school at Tanzenberg Castle in Sankt Veit an der Glan. There, he published his first writing in the school newspaper, Fackel. In 1959, he moved to Klagenfurt, where he went to high school, and commenced law studies at the University of Graz in 1961. Handke's mother took her own life in 1971, reflected in his novel Wunschloses Unglück (A Sorrow Beyond Dreams). After leaving Graz, Handke lived in Düsseldorf, Berlin, Kronberg, Paris, the U.S. (1978–1979) and Salzburg (1979–1988). Since 1990, he has resided in Chaville near Paris. He is the subject of the documentary film Peter Handke: In the Woods, Might Be Late (2016), directed by Corinna Belz. Since 2012, Handke has been a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church. As of early November 2019, there was an official investigation by the relevant authorities into whether Handke may have automatically lost his Austrian citizenship upon obtaining a Yugoslav passport and nationality in the late 1990s. While studying, Handke established himself as a writer, linking up with the Grazer Gruppe (the Graz Authors' Assembly), an association of young writers. The group published a magazine on literature, manuskripte, which published Handke's early works. Group members included Wolfgang Bauer and Barbara Frischmuth. Handke abandoned his studies in 1965, after the German publishing house Suhrkamp Verlag accepted his novel Die Hornissen (The Hornets) for publication. He gained international attention after an appearance at a meeting of avant-garde artists belonging to the Gruppe 47 in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1966. The same year, his play Publikumsbeschimpfung (Offending the Audience) premiered at the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt, directed by Claus Peymann. Handke became one of the co-founders of the publishing house Verlag der Autoren in 1969 with a new commercial concept, as it belonged to the authors. He co-founded the Grazer Autorenversammlung in 1973 and was a member until 1977. Handke's first play, Publikumsbeschimpfung (Offending the Audience), which premiered in Frankfurt in 1966 and made him well known, was the first of several experimental plays without a conventional plot. In his second play, Kaspar, he treated the story of Kaspar Hauser as "an allegory of conformist social pressures". Handke collaborated with director Wim Wenders on a film version of Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter, wrote the script for Falsche Bewegung (The Wrong Move) and co-wrote the screenplay for Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) including the poem at its opening and Les Beaux Jours d'Aranjuez (The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez). He also directed films, including adaptations from his novels The Left-Handed Woman after Die linkshändige Frau, and The Absence after Die Abwesenheit. The Left-Handed Woman, was released in 1978 and was nominated for the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978 and won the Gold Award for German Arthouse Cinema in 1980. Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide's description of the film is that a woman demands that her husband leave and he complies. "Time passes... and the audience falls asleep." Handke also won the 1975 German Film Award in Gold for his screenplay for Falsche Bewegung (The Wrong Move). Since 1975, Handke has been a jury member of the European literary award Petrarca-Preis. In 2019, Handke was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience." In 1977, reviewing A Moment of True Feeling, Stanley Kauffmann wrote that Handke "is the most important new writer on the international scene since Samuel Beckett." John Updike reviewed the same novel in The New Yorker and was equally impressed, noting that "there is no denying his [Handke's] willful intensity and knifelike clarity of evocation. He writes from an area beyond psychology, where feelings acquire the adamancy of randomly encountered, geologically analyzed pebbles." The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described him as "the darling of the West German critics." Hugo Hamilton stated that, since his debut, Handke "has tested, inspired and shocked audiences." Joshua Cohen noted that Handke "commands one of the great German-language prose styles of the post-war period, a riverine rhetoric deep and swift and contrary of current," while Gabriel Josipovici described him, "despite reservations about some of his recent work," as one of the most significant German-language writers of the post-war era. W. G. Sebald was inspired by Handke's intricate prose. In an essay on Repetition, he wrote about "a great and, as I have since learned, lasting impression" the book made on him. "I don’t know," he lauded, "if the forced relation between hard drudgery and airy magic, particularly significant for the literary art, has ever been more beautifully documented than in the pages of Repetition." Karl Ove Knausgård described A Sorrow Beyond Dreams as one of the "most important books written in German in our time." The book and its author were also praised in Knausgård's My Struggle. In 1996, Handke's travelogue Eine winterliche Reise zu den Flüssen Donau, Save, Morawa und Drina oder Gerechtigkeit für Serbien (published in English as A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia) created controversy, as Handke portrayed Serbia as being among the victims of the Yugoslav Wars. In the same essay, Handke also criticised Western media for misrepresenting the causes and consequences of the war. Sebastian Hammelehle wrote that Handke's view of the Yugoslav Wars, which has provoked numerous controversies, was probably romanticized, but that it represented the view of a writer, not a war reporter. The American translator Scott Abbott, who travelled with Handke through Yugoslavia after which numerous essays were published, stated that Handke considered Yugoslavia as the "incredible, rich multicultural state that lacked the kind of nationalisms that he saw in Germany and Austria". Abbott added that Handke viewed the disintegration of country as the disappearance of utopia. Reviewing The Moravian Night, Joshua Cohen stated that Handke's Yugoslavia was not a country, but a symbol of himself, a symbol of literature or the "European Novel". Volker Hage wrote that The Moravian Night is "extremely cosmopolitan" and connected to the present, while also that the book represents the autobiographical summary of Handke's life as a writer. Tanjil Rashid noted that "Handke’s novels, plays and memoirs demonstrate the evil of banality". After his play Voyage by Dugout was staged in 1999, Handke was condemned by other writers: Susan Sontag proclaimed Handke to be "finished" in New York. Salman Rushdie declared him as a candidate for "International Moron of the Year" due to his "idiocies", while Alain Finkielkraut said that he was an "ideological monster", and Slavoj Žižek stated that his "glorification of the Serbs is cynicism". When Handke was awarded the International Ibsen Award in 2014, it caused some calls for the jury to resign. However, disputing such interpretations of his work as listed above as misinterpreted by the English press, Handke has described the Srebrenica massacre as an "infernal vengeance, eternal shame for the Bosnian Serbs responsible." This concern about the imprecision and political nature of language, carries through Handke's view. In a 2006 interview, Handke commented on concerns about the stereotyped language of the media that "knew everything", endlessly recycling words like "the butcher of Belgrade". Handke’s literary fame was overshadowed in 2006 by his politics. The writer’s public support of Slobodan Milošević, the former president of Yugoslavia who died that year while on trial for genocide and war crimes, caused controversy after Handke spoke at his funeral. Because of this the administrator of the theatre Comédie-Française, Marcel Bozonnet, removed Handke's play "Voyage au pays sonore ou L'art de la question" from the forthcoming 2007 schedule. This event once again drew both supportive and critical voices. Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the French minister of culture, implicitly criticized Bozonnet's action in a letter addressed to him, and by deciding to invite Handke to the ministry. A petition against the censorship of his work was signed by Emir Kusturica, Patrick Modiano (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2014), Paul Nizon, Bulle Ogier, Luc Bondy and Handke’s compatriot Elfriede Jelinek (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004). Handke was subsequently selected to receive that year’s Heinrich Heine Prize, though he refused it before it was to be revoked from him. In 2013, Tomislav Nikolić, as the then President of Serbia, expressed gratitude saying that some people still remember those who suffered for Christianity, implying that Handke was a victim of scorn for his views, to which Handke replied with an explanation, "I was not anyone's victim, the Serbian people is victim." This was said during the ceremony at which Handke received the Gold Medal of Merit of the Republic of Serbia. In 2019, The Intercept published a number of articles by Peter Maass criticizing Peter Handke's Nobel Prize in Literature reception. In another article by Intercept, Maass went to great lengths accusing Handke of being an "exponent of white nationalism". Subsequently in an interview conducted by Maass in December 2019, asking Handke whether the 1995 Srebrenica massacre had happened, Handke responded: “I prefer waste paper, an anonymous letter with waste paper inside, to your empty and ignorant questions.” Maass also claims that two Nobel prize jurors were adhering to "conspiracy theories" with regard to American involvement in the Yugoslav conflicts, and that the jurors were "misinformed" about Handke's literary achievements. Peter Handke received countless mails that included threats, or unsanitary content. Germany's Eugen Ruge also protested against the scale of the criticism. In November, around 120 authors, literary scholars, translators and artists expressed their unease in an open letter. They felt that the criticism against Handke was no longer rational. In February 2020, Handke was decorated with the Order of Karađorđe's Star for "special merits in representing Serbia and its citizens" as he "wholeheartedly defended the Serbian truth". The current President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić presented recipients on the occasion of the Serbian Statehood Day. 1973: Georg Büchner Prize 1987: Vilenica International Literary Prize 2000: Brothers Karić Award 2002: America Award 2002: Honorary Doctor, University of Klagenfurt 2003: Honorary Doctor, University of Salzburg 2008: Thomas-Mann-Preis 2009: Franz Kafka Prize 2012: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis 2014: International Ibsen Award 2018: Nestroy Theatre Prize for Lifetime Achievement 2019: Nobel Prize in Literature 2020: Order of Karađorđe's Star 2021: Order of the Republika Srpska 2024: Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria Handke has written novels, plays, screenplays, essays and poems, often published by Suhrkamp. Many works were translated into English. His works are held by the German National Library, including: 1966 Die Hornissen (The Hornets), novel 1970 Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick), novel and screenplay of the film The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972) 1972 Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied (Short Letter, Long Farewell), novel 1972 Wunschloses Unglück (A Sorrow Beyond Dreams: A Life Story), memoir 1975 Die Stunde der wahren Empfindung (A Moment of True Feeling), novel 1976 Die linkshändige Frau (The Left-Handed Woman) 1979 Langsame Heimkehr (Slow Homecoming), start of a tetralogy of stories, including Die Lehre der Sainte-Victoire (1980), Über die Dörfer and Kindergeschichte (1981) 1983 Der Chinese des Schmerzes (Across), story 1986 Die Wiederholung (Repetition), novel 1994 Mein Jahr in der Niemandsbucht. Ein Märchen aus den neuen Zeiten (My Year in the No-Man's-Bay), novel 1997 In einer dunklen Nacht ging ich aus meinem stillen Haus (On a Dark Night I Left My Silent House) 2002 Der Bildverlust oder Durch die Sierra de Gredos (Crossing the Sierra de Gredos), novel 2004 Don Juan (erzählt von ihm selbst) (Don Juan: His Own Version) 2008 Die morawische Nacht (The Moravian Night), novel 2009 Bis dass der Tag euch scheidet oder Eine Frage des Lichts: ein Monolog (Till Day You Do Part or A Question of Light) 2011 Der Große Fall (The Great Fall) 2017 Die Obstdiebin oder Einfache Fahrt ins Landesinnere (The Fruit Thief or One-Way Journey into the Interior) 2020 Das zweite Schwert (The Second Sword) 2021 Mein Tag im anderen Land (My Day in the Other Land) 2023 Die Ballade des letzten Gastes 1966 Publikumsbeschimpfung und andere Sprechstücke (Offending the Audience and Other Spoken Plays), play, English version as Offending the Audience and Self-accusation 1967 Kaspar, play, English version also as Kaspar and Other Plays 1973 Die Unvernünftigen sterben aus, play 1977 Die linkshändige Frau (The Left-Handed Woman), screenplay after his 1976 novel 1987 Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire), screenplay with Wim Wenders 1990 Das Wintermärchen, William Shakespeare, German translation by Peter Handke. Première Schaubühne Berlin (1990) 1992 Die Stunde, da wir nichts voneinander wußten (The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other), play 2010 Immer noch Sturm (Storm Still), a play about the Slovenian uprising against Hitler in 1945, ISBN 978-3-518-42131-4; first performance: Salzburg Festival 2011 2018 Peter Handke Bibliothek. I. Prose, Poetry, Plays (Vol. 1–9), ISBN 978-3-518-42781-1; II. Essays (Vol. 10–11), ISBN 978-3-518-42782-8; III Diaries (Vol. 13–14), ISBN 978-3-518-42783-5 2021 Handke, Peter; Winston, Krishna (2022). The fruit thief, or, One-way journey into the interior. New York. ISBN 978-0-374-90650-4. OCLC 1276901930.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Abbott, Scott and Žarko Radaković (2013). Repetitions. Brooklyn/NYC: Punctum Books. Herwig, Malte (2010). Meister der Dämmerung. Peter Handke. Eine Biografie. München: DVA (official biography in German). Höller, Hans (2007). Peter Handke. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Sebald, W. G. (2013). Across the Border: Peter Handke's Repetition. Amsterdam, Sofia: The Last Books. Heinz-Norbert Jocks, Peter Handke: Über die Freiheit des Unterwegsseins. Ein Gespräch mit Peter Handke. In: Basler Zeitung. 25. September 2004. Peter Handke (geb. 1942) / Schriftsteller Archived 11 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine Literaturarchiv der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek Peter Handke / Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Romancier, Lyriker, Essayist, Übersetzer, Drehbuchautor, Regisseur, Zeichner, Nobelpreisträger / Geboren: 1942, Griffen Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Peter Handke Library of the Free University of Berlin List of works Peter Handke, Song of childhood (poem) Wim Wenders Peter Handke at IMDb Karl-Erik Tallmo: "A son's long good-bye" / About the writings of Peter Handke / (until Die Wiederholung, 1986) Svenska Dagbladet, 23 September 1988 Peter Handke on Nobelprize.org Sound recordings with Peter Handke in the Online Archive of the Österreichische Mediathek (Literary readings, interviews and radio reports) (in German)

5. Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1888 - 1970)

With an HPI of 70.63, Shmuel Yosef Agnon is the 5th most famous Austrian Writer. His biography has been translated into 83 different languages.

Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון; August 8, 1887 – February 17, 1970) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. In Hebrew, he is known by the acronym Shai Agnon (ש"י עגנון‎). In English, his works are published under the name S. Y. Agnon. Agnon was born in Polish Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, and died in Jerusalem. His works deal with the conflict between the traditional Jewish life and language and the modern world. They also attempt to recapture the fading traditions of the European shtetl (village). In a wider context, he also contributed to broadening the characteristic conception of the narrator's role in literature. Agnon had a distinctive linguistic style, mixing modern and rabbinic Hebrew. In 1966, he shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with the poet Nelly Sachs.

6. Elfriede Jelinek (b. 1946)

With an HPI of 70.29, Elfriede Jelinek is the 6th most famous Austrian Writer. Her biography has been translated into 103 different languages.

Elfriede Jelinek (German: [ɛlˈfʁiːdə ˈjɛlinɛk]; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors to write in German and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in 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". She is considered to be among the most important living playwrights of the German language. Elfriede Jelinek was born on 20 October 1946 in Mürzzuschlag, Styria, the daughter of Olga Ilona (née Buchner), a personnel director, and Friedrich Jelinek. She was raised in Vienna by her Romanian-German Catholic mother and a non-observant Czech Jewish father (whose surname Jelinek means "little deer" in Czech). Her mother's family came from Stájerlakanina, Krassó-Szörény County, Banat, Kingdom of Hungary (now Anina, Romania), and was of a bourgeois background, while her father was a working-class socialist. Her father was a chemist, who managed to avoid persecution during the Second World War by working in strategically important industrial production. However, many of his relatives became victims of the Holocaust. Her mother, with whom she had a strained relationship, was from a formerly prosperous Vienna family. As a child, Elfriede attended a Roman Catholic convent school in Vienna. Her mother planned a career for her as a musical "Wunderkind". She was instructed in piano, organ, guitar, violin, viola, and recorder from an early age. Later, she went on to study at the Vienna Conservatory, where she graduated with an organist diploma; during this time, she tried to meet her mother's high expectations, while coping with her psychologically ill father. 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. During the 1960s, she became active politically, read a great deal, and "spent an enormous amount of time watching television". She married Gottfried Hüngsberg on 12 June 1974. I was 27; he was 29. I knew enough men. Sexuality was, strangely, the only area where I emancipated myself early on. Our marriage takes place in two cities. It's a kind of Tale of Two Cities in the Dickensian sense. I've always commuted between Vienna and Munich. Vienna is where I've always lived because my friends are here and because I've never wanted to leave Vienna. In the end I've been caught up here. Munich is my husband's city and so I've always traveled to and from, and that's been good for our marriage. Despite the author's own differentiation from Austria (due to her criticism of Austria's Nazi past), Jelinek's writing is deeply rooted in the tradition of Austrian literature, showing the influence of Austrian writers such as Ingeborg Bachmann, Marlen Haushofer, and Robert Musil. Editor Friederike Eigler states that Jelinek has three major and inter-related "targets" in her writing: what she views as capitalist consumer society and its commodification of all human beings and relationships, what she views as the remnants of Austria's fascist past in public and private life, and what she views as the systematic exploitation and oppression of women in a capitalist-patriarchal society. Jelinek has claimed in multiple interviews that the Austrian-Jewish satirical tradition has been a formative influence on her writing, citing Karl Kraus, Elias Canetti, and Jewish cabaret in particular. In an interview with Sigrid Löffler, Jelinek claimed that her work is considered an oddity in contemporary Austria, where she claims satire is unappreciated and misunderstood, "because the Jews are dead." She has stressed her Jewish identity as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, claiming a continuity with a Jewish-Viennese tradition that she believes has been destroyed by fascism and is dying out. Jelinek's output has included radio plays, poetry, theatre texts, polemical essays, anthologies, novels, translations, screenplays, musical compositions, libretti and ballets, film and video art. Jelinek's work is multi-faceted, and highly controversial. It has been praised and condemned by leading literary critics. In the wake of the Fritzl case, for example, she was accused of "executing 'hysterical' portraits of Austrian perversity". Likewise, her political activism has encountered divergent and often heated reactions. Despite the controversy surrounding her work, Jelinek has won many distinguished awards; among them are the Georg Büchner Prize in 1998; the Mülheim Dramatists Prize in 2002 and 2004; the Franz Kafka Prize in 2004; and the Nobel Prize in Literature, also in 2004. 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. According to Jelinek, power and aggression are often the principal driving forces of relationships. Likewise Ein Sportstück (Sports Play) explores the darker side of competitive sports. Her provocative novel Lust contains graphic description of sexuality, aggression and abuse. It received poor reviews by many critics, some of whom likened it to pornography. But others, who noted the power of the cold descriptions of moral failures, considered it to have been misunderstood and undervalued by them. In April 2006, Jelinek spoke out to support Peter Handke, whose play Die Kunst des Fragens (The Art of Asking) was removed from the repertoire of the Comédie-Française for his alleged support of Slobodan Milošević. Her work is less known in English-speaking countries. However, in July and August 2012, a major English language premiere of her play Ein Sportstück by Just a Must theatre company brought her dramatic work to the attention of English-speaking audiences. The following year, in February and March 2013, the Women's Project in New York staged the North American premiere of Jackie, one of her Princess Dramas. Jelinek was a member of Austria's Communist Party from 1974 to 1991. She became a household name during the 1990s due to her vociferous clash with Jörg Haider's Freedom Party. Following the 1999 National Council elections, and the subsequent formation of a coalition cabinet consisting of the Freedom Party and the Austrian People's Party, Jelinek became one of the new cabinet's more vocal critics. Many foreign governments moved swiftly to ostracize Austria's administration, citing the Freedom Party's alleged nationalism and authoritarianism. The cabinet construed the sanctions against it as directed against Austria as such, and attempted to prod the nation into a national rallying (Nationaler Schulterschluss) behind the coalition parties. This provoked a temporary heating of the political climate severe enough for dissidents such as Jelinek to be accused of treason by coalition supporters. In the mid- to late-1980s, Jelinek was one of many Austrian intellectuals who signed a petition for the release of Jack Unterweger, who was imprisoned for the murder of a prostitute, and who was regarded by intellectuals and politicians as an example of successful rehabilitation. Unterweger was later found guilty of murdering nine more women within two years of his release, and committed suicide after his arrest. 1996: Literaturpreis der Stadt Bremen for Die Kinder der Toten 1998: Georg Büchner Prize 2002: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis for Macht Nichts 2003: Else Lasker-Schüler Dramatist Prize 2004: Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden for Jackie 2004: Franz Kafka Prize 2004: Nobel Prize in Literature 2004: Stig Dagerman Prize 2004: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis for Das Werk 2009: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis for Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel) 2011: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis for Winterreise 2011: Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2017: Theatre prize Der Faust for lifetime achievement 2021: Honorary citizen of the City of Vienna 2021: Nestroy Theatre Prize for lifetime achievement Lisas Schatten; München 1967 ende: gedichte von 1966–1968; München 2000 ISBN 978-3-935284-29-5 bukolit.hörroman (written 1968, published by Rhombus Verlag, 1979). bukolit: audio novel. wir sind lockvögel baby! (Rowohlt, 1970). Michael. Ein Jugendbuch für die Infantilgesellschaft (Rowohlt, 1972). Die Liebhaberinnen (Rowohlt, 1975). Women as Lovers, trans. Martin Chalmers (London: Serpent's Tail, 1994). ISBN 978-1-85242-237-0. Die Ausgesperrten (Rowohlt, 1980). Wonderful, Wonderful Times, trans. Michael Hulse (London: Serpent's Tail, 1990). ISBN 978-1-85242-168-7. Die Klavierspielerin (Rowohlt, 1983). The Piano Teacher, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988). ISBN 978-1-55584-052-5. Oh Wildnis, oh Schutz vor ihr (Rowohlt, 1985). Lust (Rowohlt, 1989). Lust, trans. Michael Hulse (London: Serpent's Tail, 1992). ISBN 978-1-85242-183-0. Die Kinder der Toten (Rowohlt, 1995). The Children of the Dead, trans. Gitta Honegger (Yale, 2024). Gier (Rowohlt, 2000). Greed, trans. Martin Chalmers (London: Serpent's Tail, 2006). ISBN 978-1-85242-902-7. Neid (2007). Envy. Private novel published on Jelinek's website. rein GOLD. ein bühnenessay (Rowohlt, 2013). rein GOLD, trans. Gitta Honegger (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2021). Was geschah, nachdem Nora ihren Mann verlassen hatte; oder Stützen der Gesellschaften (1979). What Happened after Nora Left Her Husband; or Pillars of Society. Premiered at Graz, October 1979. Clara S, musikalische Tragödie (1982). Clara S, a Musical Tragedy. Premiered at Bonn, 1982. Krankheit oder Moderne Frauen. Wie ein Stück (1984). Illness or Modern Women. Like a Play. Premiered at Bonn, 1987. Burgtheater. Posse mit Gesang (1985). Burgtheater. Farce with Songs. Premiered at Bonn, 1985. Begierde und Fahrererlaubnis (eine Pornographie) (1986). Desire and Permission to Drive – Pornography. Premiered at the Styrian Autumn, Graz, 1986. Wolken. Heim (1988). Clouds. Home. Premiered at Bonn, 1988. Präsident Abendwind. Ein Dramolett, sehr frei nach Johann Nestroy (1992). President Abendwind. A dramolet, very freely after Johann Nestroy. Premiered at Tyrol Landestheater, Innsbruck, 1992. Totenauberg (1992). Premiered at Burgtheater (Akademietheater), 1992. Raststätte oder Sie machens alle. Eine Komödie (1994). Service Area or They're All Doing It. A Comedy. Premiered at Burgtheater, 1994. Stecken, Stab und Stangl. Eine Handarbeit (1996). Rod, Staff, and Crook – Handmade. Premiered at Deutsches Schauspielhaus, 1996. Ein Sportstück (1998). Sports Play, trans. Penny Black (Oberon Books, 2012). Premiered at Burgtheater, 1998; English-language premiere in Lancaster, 11 July 2012. Also translated by Lillian Banks as Sports Chorus for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow. er nicht als er (zu, mit Robert Walser) (1998). Her Not All Her: On/With Robert Walser, trans. Damion Searls (Sylph Editions, 2012). Premiered at Salzburg Festival in conjunction with Deutsches Schauspielhaus, 1998. Das Lebewohl (2000). Les Adieux. Premiered at Berliner Ensemble, 2000. Das Schweigen (2000). Silence. Premiered at Deutsches Schauspielhaus, 2000. Der Tod und das Mädchen II (2000). Death and the Maiden II. Premiered at Expo 2000 in conjunction with the Saarbrücken Staatstheater and ZKM Karlsruhe. MACHT NICHTS – Eine Kleine Trilogie des Todes (2001). NO PROBLEM – A Little Trilogy of Death. Premiered at Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2001. In den Alpen (2002). In the Alps. Premiered at Munich Kammerspiele in conjunction with Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2002. Prinzessinnendramen: Der Tod und das Mädchen I-III und IV-V (2002). Princess Dramas: Death and the Maiden I-III and IV-V. Parts I-III premiered at Deutsches Schauspielhaus, 2002; Parts IV-V premiered at Deutsches Theater, 2002. Das Werk (2003). Premiered at Burgtheater (Akademietheater), 2003. Bambiland (2003). Trans. Lilian Friedberg (2007). Premiered at Burgtheater, 2003. Irm und Margit A part of "Attabambi Pornoland" (2004). Premiered at Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2004. Ulrike Maria Stuart (2006). Premiered at Thalia Theater, 2006. Über Tiere (2006). Rechnitz (Der Würgeengel) (2008). Rechnitz (The Exterminating Angel). Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns. Eine Wirtschaftskomödie (2009). The Merchant's Contracts. Das Werk / Im Bus / Ein Sturz (2010). Premiered at Schauspiel Köln, 2010. Winterreise (2011). Premiered at Munich Kammerspiele, 2011. Kein Licht (2011). Premiered at Schauspiel Köln, 2011 FaustIn and out (2011). Premiered at Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2012. Die Straße. Die Stadt. Der Überfall (2012). Premiered at Munich Kammerspiele, 2012. Schatten (Eurydike sagt) (2013). Shadow. Eurydice Says, trans. Gitta Honegger (2017). Premiered at Burgtheater, 2013. Aber sicher! (2013). Premiered at Theater Bremen, 2013. Die Schutzbefohlenen (2013). Charges (The Supplicants), trans. Gitta Honegger (Seagull Books, 2016). First read at Hamburg, 2013; first produced at Mannheim, 23 May 2014. Das schweigende Mädchen (2014). Premiered at Munich, 27 September 2014. Wut (2016). Fury, trans. Gitta Honegger (Seagull Books, 2022). Premiered at Munich, 16 April 2016. Am Königsweg (2017). On the Royal Road: The Burgher King, trans. Gitta Honegger (Seagull Books, 2020). Premiered at Hamburg, 28 October 2017. Schnee Weiss (2018). Premiered at Cologne, 21 December 2018. Schwarzwasser (2020). Premiered at Vienna, 6 February 2020. Lost Highway (2003), adapted from the film by David Lynch, with music by Olga Neuwirth Die Enden der Parabel (Gravity's Rainbow) novel by Thomas Pynchon; 1976 Herrenjagd drama by Georges Feydeau; 1983 Floh im Ohr drama by Georges Feydeau; 1986 Der Gockel drama by Georges Feydeau; 1986 Die Affaire Rue de Lourcine drama by Eugène Labiche; 1988 Die Dame vom Maxim drama by Georges Feydeau; 1990 Der Jude von Malta drama by Christopher Marlowe; 2001 Ernst sein ist alles drama by Oscar Wilde; 2004 Der ideale Mann drama by Oscar Wilde; 2011 Poetry and short stories from Latin American authors The Piano Teacher, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988). ISBN 978-1-55584-052-5. Wonderful, Wonderful Times, trans. Michael Hulse (London: Serpent's Tail, 1990). ISBN 978-1-85242-168-7. Lust, trans. Michael Hulse (London: Serpent's Tail, 1992). ISBN 978-1-85242-183-0. Women as Lovers, trans. Martin Chalmers (London: Serpent's Tail, 1994). ISBN 978-1-85242-237-0. Greed, trans. Martin Chalmers (London: Serpent's Tail, 2006). ISBN 978-1-85242-902-7. Bambiland, trans. Lilian Friedberg (2009), in Theater 39.3, pp. 111–43. Her Not All Her: On/With Robert Walser, trans. Damion Searls (Sylph Editions, 2012). Sports Play, trans. Penny Black (Oberon Books, 2012). Sports Chorus, trans. Lilian Banks (2012), in Sport in Art, commissioned by Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków. Rechnitz and The Merchant's Contracts, trans. Gitta Honegger (Seagull Books, 2015). ISBN 978-0-85742-225-5. Charges (The Supplicants), trans. Gitta Honegger (Seagull Books, 2016). ISBN 978-0-85742-330-6. Three Plays: Rechnitz, The Merchant's Contracts, Charges (The Supplicants), trans. Gitta Honegger (Seagull Books, 2019). On the Royal Road: The Burgher King, trans. Gitta Honegger (Seagull Books, 2020). rein GOLD, trans. Gitta Honegger (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2021). The Children of the Dead, trans. Gitta Honegger (Yale, 2024). Her novel The Piano Teacher was the basis for the 2001 film of the same title by Austrian director Michael Haneke, starring Isabelle Huppert as the protagonist. In 2022, a documentary about Jelinek was created by Claudia Müller, Elfriede Jelinek – Language Unleashed (German: Elfriede Jelinek – Die Sprache von der Leine lassen). List of female Nobel laureates Gottfried Hüngsberg (German Wikipedia) List of Jewish Nobel laureates Bethman, Brenda. 'Obscene Fantasies': Elfriede Jelinek's Generic Perversions. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2011; ISBN 978-1-4331-1060-3 Fiddler, Allyson. Rewriting Reality: An Introduction to Elfriede Jelinek. Oxford: Berg, 1994; ISBN 978-0-8549-6776-6 Gérard Thiériot (dir.). Elfriede Jelinek et le devenir du drame, Toulouse, Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2006; ISBN 978-2-85816-869-9 Flitner, Bettina. Frauen mit Visionen – 48 Europäerinnen (Women with Visions – 48 Europeans). With texts by Alice Schwarzer. Munich: Knesebeck, 2004; ISBN 978-3-89660-211-4, 122–125 p. Konzett, Matthias. The Rhetoric of National Dissent in Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, and Elfriede Jelinek. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000; ISBN 978-1-57113-204-8 Lamb-Faffelberger, Margarete and Matthias Konzett, editors. Elfriede Jelinek: Writing Woman, Nation, and Identity—A Critical Anthology. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007; ISBN 978-1611473704 Rosellini, Jay. "Haider, Jelinek, and the Austrian Culture Wars". CreateSpace.com, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4421-4214-5. Official website (in German) Elfriede Jelinek-Forschungszentrum Elfriede Jelinek on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture on 7 December 2004 Sidelined BBC synopsis List of works Elfriede Jelinek: Nichts ist verwirklicht. Alles muss jetzt neu definiert werden. Archived 4 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine (in German) The Goethe-Institut's 70th Birthday Page for Elfriede Jelinek Archived 9 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine Some of Jelinek's poems in English from the Poetry Foundation Sound recordings with Elfriede Jelinek in the Online Archive of the Österreichische Mediathek (Literary readings, interviews and radio reports) (in German)

7. Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)

With an HPI of 69.74, Peter Drucker is the 7th most famous Austrian Writer. His biography has been translated into 45 different languages.

Peter Ferdinand Drucker (; German: [ˈdʀʊkɐ]; November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of modern management theory. He was also a leader in the development of management education, and invented the concepts known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as "the champion of management as a serious discipline". Drucker's books and articles, both scholarly and popular, explored how humans are organized across the business, government, and nonprofit sectors of society. He is one of the best-known and most widely influential thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory and practice. His writings have predicted many of the major developments of the late twentieth century, including privatization and decentralization; the rise of Japan to economic world power; the decisive importance of marketing; and the emergence of the information society with its necessity of lifelong learning. In 1959, Drucker coined the term "knowledge worker", and later in his life considered knowledge-worker productivity to be the next frontier of management.

8. Arthur Schnitzler (1862 - 1931)

With an HPI of 69.34, Arthur Schnitzler is the 8th most famous Austrian Writer. His biography has been translated into 54 different languages.

Arthur Schnitzler (15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. He is considered one of the most significant representatives of the Viennese Modernism. Schnitzler’s works, which include psychological dramas and narratives, dissected turn-of-the-century Viennese bourgeois life, making him a sharp and stylistically conscious chronicler of Viennese society around 1900.

9. Maria Leopoldina of Austria (1797 - 1826)

With an HPI of 67.05, Maria Leopoldina of Austria is the 9th most famous Austrian Writer. Her biography has been translated into 40 different languages.

Dona Maria Leopoldina of Austria (22 January 1797 – 11 December 1826) was the first Empress of Brazil as the wife of Emperor Dom Pedro I from 12 October 1822 until her death. She was also Queen of Portugal during her husband's brief reign as King Dom Pedro IV from 10 March to 2 May 1826. She was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, and his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Among her many siblings were Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria and Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. The education Maria Leopoldina had received in childhood and adolescence was broad and eclectic, with a higher cultural level and more consistent political training. Such education of the little princes and princesses of the Habsburg family was based on the educational belief initiated by their grandfather Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, who believed "that children should be inspired from an early age to have high qualities, such as humanity, compassion and the desire to make people happy". With a deep Christian faith and a solid scientific and cultural background (which included international politics and notions of government) the Archduchess had been prepared from an early age to being a proper royal consort. In the 21st century, it has been proposed by some historians that she was one of the main articulators of the process of Independence of Brazil that took place in 1822. Her biographer, historian Paulo Rezzutti, maintains that it was largely thanks to her that Brazil became a nation. According to him, the wife of Dom Pedro "embraced Brazil as her country, Brazilians as her people and Independence as her cause". She was also adviser to Dom Pedro on important political decisions that reflected the future of the nation, such as the Dia do Fico and the subsequent opposition and disobedience to the Portuguese courts regarding the couple's return to Portugal. Consequently, for governing the country on Dom Pedro's trips through the Brazilian provinces, she is considered the first woman to become head of state in an independent American country.

10. Gustav Meyrink (1868 - 1932)

With an HPI of 66.19, Gustav Meyrink is the 10th most famous Austrian Writer. His biography has been translated into 40 different languages.

Gustav Meyrink (19 January 1868 – 4 December 1932) was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, novelist, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel The Golem. He has been described as the "most respected German language writer in the field of supernatural fiction".

People

Pantheon has 81 people classified as Austrian writers born between 1060 and 1969. Of these 81, 14 (17.28%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Austrian writers include Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek, and Klaus Ebner. The most famous deceased Austrian writers include Stefan Zweig, Robert Musil, and Paula Hitler. As of April 2024, 13 new Austrian writers have been added to Pantheon including Pauline von Metternich, Ulrich von Liechtenstein, and Alfréd Wetzler.