- JELINEK, Elfriede
- Elfriede Jelinek, major
Austrian writer and recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature,
was born in Mürzzuschlag (the exact region in which her novel
Die Kinder der Toten is set) in 1946. She studied theater,
art history and music in Vienna. Her literary debut was in 1970
with wir sind lockvögel baby! (we're bait baby!),
and she is probably best known for the novel Die Klavierspielerin
(The Piano Player, 1983) Her works often play with literary traditions
including those of pop culture; for example, her controversial short
novel Lust (1989) uses elements of pornography with the
goal of creating an antipornographic effect. Jelinek also uses pop
cultural elements in Die Kinder der Toten, for which the
"Prologue" and the "Epilogue" provide a frame.
While the prologue and epilogue parady the literary tradition of
regionalism and create an eerie and forboding atmosphere of death,
the major pop motive of vampirism is developed only in the main
section of the novel.
Die Kinder der Toten: Prolog und Epilog (The Children of the
Dead: Prologue and Epilogue) from Die Kinder der Toten (Reinbek
bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1995): Vol. 5, No. 3
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