Biography
Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989), born near Heerlen in the Netherlands and raised in Austria and Bavaria, was the most corrosive voice in postwar Austrian literature and one of the singular German-language dramatists of his era. Bernhard's childhood was marked by extreme poverty, tuberculosis, and a long estrangement from his mother. His novels—Frost (1963), Das Kalkwerk, Korrektur, Wittgensteins Neffe, Alte Meister, Auslöschung—established his signature voice of obsessive, recursive monologues attacking Austrian cultural and political life. His plays, including Ein Fest für Boris, Der Ignorant und der Wahnsinnige, Ritter, Dene, Voss, and the scandal-making Heldenplatz (1988), are equally important as postwar European theatre. In his will, Bernhard forbade performance or publication of his works in Austria—a ban upheld until legal battles dissolved it after 1999. He died in Gmunden in 1989.
On Stagelog
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