Elfriede Jelinek Books In Order

Novels

Brassiere Factory (1988)
The Piano Teacher (1988)
Wonderful Wonderful Times (1990)
Lust (1992)
Women as Lovers (1994)
Greed (2006)
Fury (2022)

Plays

Sports Play (2012)
Her Not All Her (2013)
Three Plays (2019)
On the Royal Road: The Burgher King (2020)
On the Royal Road (2021)

Non fiction

Framed by Language (1994)
Charges (2017)
Rein Gold (2021)

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Elfriede Jelinek Books Overview

The Piano Teacher

‘The Piano Teacher , winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature, is an exploration of fascism, not so much in the political sense as in the personal. In Joachim Neugroschel’s excellent translation, the language is simple yet full of imaginative, often funny metaphors, the view of the world original, if at times almost painfully bizarre.’ New York Times Book Review’A dazzling performance that will make the blood run cold.’ Walter Abish’A brilliant, bitter, wonderful portrait of mother and daughter, artist and lover.’ John Hawkes’A brilliant, uncompromising book.’ Publishers WeeklyErika Kohut teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory by day. But by night she trawls the po*rn shows of Vienna while her mother, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, waits up for her. Into this emotional pressure cooker bounds music student and ladies’ man, Walter Klemmer. With Walter as her student, Erika spirals out of control, consumed by the ecstasy of self destruction. First published in 1983, The Piano Teacher is the masterpiece of Elfriede Jelinek, Austria’s most famous writer. Now a feature film directed by Michael Haneke, The Piano Teacher won three major prizes at the Cannes 2001 Festival including best actor for Beno t Magimel and best actress for Isabelle Huppert. Elfriede Jelinek was born in Austria in 1946 and grew up in Vienna where she attended the famous Music Conservatory. The leading Austrian writer of her generation, she has been awarded the Heinrich B ll Prize for her contribution to German language literature.

Wonderful Wonderful Times

‘That’s brutal violence on a defenceless person, and quite unnecessary, declares Sophie, and she pulls with an audible tearing sound at the hair of the man lying in an untidy heap on the ground. What’s unnecessary is best of all, says Rainer, who wants to go on fighting. We agreed on that.’ It is the late 1950s. A man is out walking in a park in Vienna. He will be beaten up by four teenagers, not for his money, he has an average amount, nor for anything he might have done to them, but because the youths are arrogant and very pleased with themselves. Their arrogance is their way of reacting to the maggot ridden corpse that is Austria where everyone has a closet to hide their Na*zi histories, their sexual perversions and their hatred of the foreigner. Elfriede Jelinek, who writes like an angel of all that is tawdry, shows in ‘Wonderful, Wonderful Times’ how actions of the present are determined by thoughts of the past.

Lust

In a quaint Austrian ski resort, things are not quite what they seem. Hermann, the manager of a paper mill, has decided that sexual gratification begins at home. Which means Gerti his wife and property. Gerti is not asked how she feels about the use Hermann puts her to. She is a receptacle into which Hermann pours his juices, nastily, briefly, brutally. The long suffering and battered Gerti thinks she has found her saviour and love in Michael, a student who rescues her after a day of vigorous use by her husband. But Michael is on his way up the Austrian political ladder, and he is, after all, a man.

Women as Lovers

The setting is an idyllic Alpine village where a woman’s underwear factory nestles in the woods. Two factory workers, Brigitte and Paula, dream and talk about finding happiness, a comfortable home and a good man. They realize that their quest will be as hard as work at the factory. Brigitte subordinates her feelings and goes for Heinz, a young, plump, up and coming businessman. With Paula, feelings and dreams become confused. She gets pregnant by Erich, the forestry worker. He’s handsome, so they marry. Brigitte gets it right. Paula gets it wrong. Using the conventions and language of romantic fiction, Elfriede Jelinek has written a moving tragedy whose power lies in its refusal to take at face value its characters’ dreams and aspirations.

Greed

Greed is another intriguing and challenging novel from Europe’s cleverest, most visceral social phobic. The ListIn her first novel published in English since becoming the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004, Elfriede Jelinek delivers a stunning and unforgettable book. Greed is the story of Kurt Janisch, an ambitious but frustrated country policeman, and the lonely women he seduces. It is a thriller set amid the mountains and small towns of southern Austria, where the investigation of a dead girl s body in a lake leads to the discovery of more than a single crime. In her signature style, Jelinek chronicles the exploitative nature of relations between men and women, and the cruelties of everyday life. Always controversial, Jelinek was considered a bold choice for the Nobel Prize. The Swedish academy applauded her linguistic zeal and analytic prowess, while her critics have been scandalized by her satirical critiques of patriarchy and her maso*chistic hero*ines. The leading Austrian writer of her generation, Elfriede Jelinek has been awarded the Heinrich B ll Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature.