Elfriede Jelinek facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Elfriede Jelinek
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Jelinek in 2004
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| Born | 20 October 1946 Mürzzuschlag, Austria |
| Occupation | Playwright, novelist |
| Education | University of Vienna |
| Genre | Feminism, social criticism, postdramatic theatre |
| Years active | 1963–present |
| Notable awards | Georg Büchner Prize 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature 2004 |
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Elfriede Jelinek ( born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors writing in German today and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature. Next to Peter Handke and Botho Strauss she is considered to be the most important living playwright of the German language.
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Biography
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 came from 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.
She married Gottfried Hüngsberg on 12 June 1974.
Work
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 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.
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.
Awards and honors
- 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
See also
In Spanish: Elfriede Jelinek para niños
