1. Elfriede Jelinek is one of the most decorated authors to write in German and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's cliches and their subjugating power".
Elfriede Jelinek is considered to be among the most important living playwrights of the German language.
Elfriede Jelinek was born on 20 October 1946 in Murzzuschlag, Styria, Austria, the daughter of Olga Ilona, a personnel director, and Friedrich Jelinek.
Elfriede Jelinek was raised in Vienna by her Romanian-German Catholic mother and a non-observant Czech Jewish father.
Elfriede Jelinek's mother's family came from Stajerlakanina, Krasso-Szoreny County, Banat, Kingdom of Hungary, and was of a bourgeois background, while her father was a working-class socialist.
Elfriede Jelinek's father was a chemist, who managed to avoid persecution during the Second World War by working in strategically important industrial production.
Elfriede Jelinek's mother planned a career for her as a musical "Wunderkind".
Elfriede Jelinek was instructed in piano, organ, guitar, violin, viola, and recorder from an early age.
Elfriede Jelinek studied art history and theater at the University of Vienna.
Elfriede Jelinek made her literary debut with Lisas Schatten in 1967, and received her first literary prize in 1969.
Editor Friederike Eigler states that Elfriede Jelinek has three major and inter-related "targets" in her writing: what she views as capitalist consumer society and its commodification of all human beings and relationships, what she views as the remnants of Austria's fascist past in public and private life, and what she views as the systematic exploitation and oppression of women in a capitalist-patriarchal society.
Elfriede Jelinek has claimed in multiple interviews that the Austrian-Jewish satirical tradition has been a formative influence on her writing, citing Karl Kraus, Elias Canetti, and Jewish cabaret in particular.
Elfriede Jelinek's output has included radio plays, poetry, theatre texts, polemical essays, anthologies, novels, translations, screenplays, musical compositions, libretti and ballets, film and video art.
Elfriede Jelinek was a member of Austria's Communist Party from 1974 to 1991.
Elfriede Jelinek became a household name during the 1990s due to her vociferous clash with Jorg Haider's Freedom Party.