Thomas Bernhard

Born out of wedlock in the Netherlands in 1931, Bernhard grew up shuttled between Austrian grandparents and boarding homes, closest to his grandfather, the novelist Johannes Freumbichler, who opened the door to literature. Pleurisy and tuberculosis struck him as a teenager; he spent years in a sanatorium, began writing, and met Hedwig Stavianicek, the wealthy heiress he later called the most important person in his life. His 1963 breakthrough Frost launched two decades of novels and plays marked by long monologues, obsessive repetition, and protagonists teetering toward madness - Correction in 1975, the five-volume Gathering Evidence memoirs through 1982, Extinction in 1986. The work made him a giant in German letters and shaped a generation of Austrian writers including Elfriede Jelinek, but it also made him notorious at home for his relentless public attacks on Austria's post-war denial and pretension.