Elfriede Jelinek

Elfriede Jelinek (born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian feminist playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004 "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."

The Nobel Prize

Commenting on the Nobel Prize, she said that she was very happy but also felt despair: "despair for becoming a known, a person of the public". Paradigmatic for her modesty and subtle self-irony, she — a reputed feminist writer — wondered if she had been awarded the prize mainly for "being a woman" and suggested that among German authors, Peter Handke whom she praises as a "living classic" would have been a more worthy winner.

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Jelinek was criticized by some for not accepting the prize in person, instead a video message was presented at the ceremony. Others appreciated that Jelinek openly disclosed that she suffers from agoraphobia and social phobia, anxiety disorders which can be highly disruptive to everyday functioning yet are often concealed by those affected out of shame or feeling of inadequacy. Jelinek has said that her anxiety disorders make it impossible for her even e.g. to go to the cinema or to board an airplane (in an interview she wished to be able to fly to New York to see the skyscrapers one day before dying), and she felt incapable of taking part in any ceremony. However, in her own words as stated in another tape message: "I would also very much like to be in Stockholm, but I cannot move as fast and far as my language."

Related Topics:
Agoraphobia - Social phobia

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