Biography
Marlen Haushofer was born Marie Helene Frauendorfer in 1920 in Frauenstein near Molln in Upper Austria. She attended an Ursuline boarding school in Linz and from 1940 studied German literature in Vienna and later in Graz, without completing a degree. From 1946 she published stories in newspapers and magazines, and her novella “Das fünfte Jahr” brought her first recognition in 1952. Further books included the novels “Eine Handvoll Leben” (1955), “Die Tapetentür” (1957), “Himmel, der nirgendwo endet” (1966) and “Die Mansarde” (1969), children's books such as “Brav sein ist schwer” and several radio plays. Her best-known book is the novel “Die Wand” (The Wall, 1963), in which a woman is cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible barrier; it reached cinemas in 2012 as a film starring Martina Gedeck. Haushofer died in Vienna in 1970. Her long-neglected work was rediscovered from the 1980s onwards through new editions and feminist literary scholarship, and Claassen published a six-volume edition of her collected works in 2023.
On Stagelog
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