Thomas Bernhard's Afterlives

In his prose fiction, memoirs, poetry, and drama, Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989)--one of the 20th century's most uniquely gifted writers--created a new and radical style, seemingly out of thin air. His books never “tell a story” in the received sense. Instead, he rages on the page, he rants and spews vitriol about the moral failures of his homeland, Austria, in the long amnesiac aftermath of the Second World War.

Yet this furious prose, seemingly shapeless but composed with unparalleled musicality, and taxing by conventional standards, has been powerfully echoed in many writers since Bernhard's death in 1989. These explorers have found in Bernhard's singular accomplishment new paths for the expression of life and truth.

Thomas Bernhard's Afterlives examines the international mobilization of Bernhard's style. Writers in Italian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, English, and French have succeeded in making Bernhard's Austrian vision an international vision. This book tells that story.

“More than three decades after his death, Thomas Bernhard has become an author of world literature. The resonance of Bernhard's voice in the works of numerous contemporaries far beyond the borders of Austria provides powerful testimony of this fact. In its exploration of this resonance, this remarkable volume makes a significant contribution to Bernhard criticism. Through their forays into Bernhard's international reception, the essays collected here open up new and extended vistas into the œuvre of one of the foremost German-language writers of the 20th century.” —Manfred Mittermayer, Director, Literaturarchiv Salzburg, University of Salzburg, Austria

“In this insightful volume, we learn about the many ways in which authors across the globe have sought to emulate the great Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989), from 'anticipatory plagiarism' to 'coinhabiting palimpsests.' Writers like Susan Sontag, W.G. Sebald, Geoff Dyer, Imre Kertész, Italo Calvino, and Horacio Castellanos Moya have turned to the brilliantly querulous Austrian to pursue their own political or aesthetic projects. Their takings have been devious, inclusive, maddening, profound, liberating. There are numerous avenues still to pursue with Bernhard, and this volume explores one fruitful possibility.” —Fatima Naqvi, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, USA