Thomas Bernhard

Thomas Bernhard (1931-89) grew up in Salzburg and Vienna, where he studied music. In 1957 he began a second career as a playwright, poet, and novelist. He went on to win many of the most prestigious literary prizes of Europe (including the Austrian State Prize, the Bremen and Br chner prizes, and Le Prix S guier), became one of the most widely admired writers of his generation, and insisted at his death that none of his works be published in Austria for seventy years, a provision later repealed by his half-brother. James Reidel is a poet, biographer, and translator who has also translated the works by Thomas Bernhard, Georg Trakl, and Franz Werfel, among others.