Elfriede Jelinek

Born on October 20, 1946, to a Czech-Jewish father in the town of Mürzzuschlag in Styria, southern Austria, Jelinek learned music and honed her composition skills at the Vienna Conservatory. After graduating in 1964, she attended theater and art history classes at the University of Vienna while continuing her music studies. In 1971, she obtained a diploma in church organ from the Conservatory. She made her literary debut in 1967 with the poetry collection "Lisas Schatten," published in Munich, but gained wider recognition in 1975 with her novel "Liebhaberinnen" ("Women as Lovers") and subsequently in 1980 with "Die Ausgesperrten" ("Wonderful, Wonderful Times"). Her novel "Die Klavierspielerin" ("The Piano Teacher," 1983) was adapted into a film in 2001 by her compatriot Michael Haneke, featuring Isabelle Huppert in the lead role. Other well-known novels include "Lust" ("Lust," 1989) and "Gier" ("Greed," 2000). Her latest novel, "Neid" (2007), was released freely on the internet, marking her decision to break away from the commercial publishing circuit. Residing in Vienna and Munich, Jelinek is also a translator (works by Thomas Pynchon, Georges Feydeau, Eugène Labiche, Christopher Marlowe) and has worked as a screenwriter in cinema and written an opera libretto. Additionally, she is a popular playwright with more than twenty plays to her credit between 1979-2009. In 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences for "the musical flow of voices and counter-voices in her novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity and oppressive power of social clichés," according to the Academy's citation.