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In OE1's Kulturjournal today, there was an interview in which Dorothee Frank says, of Nobel Prize for Literature winners and their influences on the literary life of their countries (translation mine),

Elfriede Jelinek is the first author originating from Austria. Before her there was only Canetti and he wasn't born in Austria.

I shall dwell on the point at this sad time for the black--brown coalition running Austria. What's relevant is not where Elias Canetti was born, it is the circles he moved in, and where he worked, which was Britain. Austria after 1938, in what the FPÖ, whose official logo is sky blue despite their muddier-coloured politics, probably imagine was its hour of need, was far from congenial for a Sephardic Jewish intellectual.

Your challenge for next week is to find an English translation of a book by Canetti, who is probably only known in the country where he spent most of his life for having had an affair with Iris Murdoch, in a UK bookshop.

An article on the FPÖ website says "One should not forget that Jelinek has been dragging Austria['s name] in the dirt for years", in contrast, we have to assume, to Jörg Haider or Kurt Waldheim. It goes on to mention eminent literary figures who never won the Nobel, two of whom were Robert Musil and Franz Kafka. It's a shame for the FPÖ's line of reasoning that death, which disqualifies you from winning the Nobel, took both of them before their most important works were published. Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß, which did appear in Musil's lifetime, is a study of the violence inherent in Austrian society, specifically that in military academies, and is naturally far closer to Jelinek's output than anything we've seen from the Freedomites.

posted at: 22:25 | path: /OE | permanent link to this entry