Thomas Bernhard

Novelist, dramatist, and poet, whose merciless analysis of the mentality of his fellow countrymen earned him the reputation of the enfant terrible of Austrian literature. Central themes in Bernhard's work are death, suffering, and the hopelessness of the world in which we live.

Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard was born in Heerlen, near Maastrich, Holland, as the illegitimate son of Austrian parents. His father, Alois Zuckerstätter, who came from Henndorf, Austria, was a carpenter. He never wanted to take care of his son and refused to acknowledge his paternity. Alois committed suicide in 1940 in Berlin, but Bernhard himself has claimed that he died in 1943. Bernhard's mother, Herta Bernhard , was the daughter of the author Johannes Freumbichler. Herta married Emil Fabjan in 1936 and next year Bernhard joined them in Trausntein. Herta died of cancer of the uterus in 1950.

His earliest childhood Bernhard spent in the care of his maternal grandparents in Vienna and Seekirchen (Wallersee). His grandfather, who devoted himself entirely to his writing, provided for Bernhard the model for his eccentrics in his books. In 1941 Bernhard was sent to an institution for diffucult children. After returning in 1942 to Traunstein he continued his school there. In 1943 he was confirned in a Catholic church.

While still studying, Bernhard began to work as a courtroom reporter for the Socialist Demokratisches Volksblatt. His first novel, Frost (1963), was a long monologue of a medical student, who observes the fate of a doomed painter. In the mid-1960s, after nomadic years, Bernhard bought a fortress-like farmhouse in Obernathal, a small village in Upper Austria, his sanctuary for the following decades. He spent also much time in the fashionable cafés of Vienna.

Bernhard received several literary awards, including Österreichische Staatspreis für Literatur (1967), the Anton-Wildgans-Preis der Österreichischen Indistrie (1967), the Georg-Büchner-Preis (1970), the Franz-Theodor-Csokor-Preis (1972). 

His companion for life was Hedwig Stavianicek, "Auntie", more than thirty-seven years his senior. "Without her, I would not be alive at all," Bernhard once confessed, "or at any rate I would certainly not be the person I am today, so mad and so unhappy, yet at the same time happy." Bernhard died on February 12, 1989. His half brother, Dr. Peter Fabjan, was with him all the time during the day of his death. Bernhard's will caused much controversy - as a final act of opposition, Bernhard banned all further publications of his books and prohibited the performances of his plays in Austria.

Sources:

Thomas-Bernhard-Privatstiftung
Secretary general: Marie-Christine Baratta-Dragono
Blutgasse 3/2
A-1010 Wien
http://stiftung.thomasbernhard.at
http://www.thomasbernhard.at

Salzburger Seenland Tourismus GmbH
Seeburgstraße 8
5201 Seekirchen am Wallersee
http://www.salzburger-seenland.at/en-bookable_leisure_offers.htm

Jürgen Neckam
http://www.geocities.com/neckam2/Bernhard.html