Friederike Mayröcker is one of the leading postwar writers in the German-speaking world. She has written more than forty books and many pieces for periodicals; these works include prose, poetry, and radio plays, as well as many unconventional hybrid forms. A striking feature of her works is the absence of a story in the conventional sense. Instead, she explores the possibilities of language when it is freed from the constraints of verisimilitude. Her work makes high demands on the reader and is often regarded as inaccessible; thus recognition was slow in coming. But her Die Abschiede (The Farewells, 1980) was on the best-seller list in West Germany; and she has won many important literary awards, including the Trakl Prize in 1977 and the Great Austrian State Prize in 1982.

Born in Vienna on 20 December 1924, Mayröcker continues to reside there. She began writing poetry at an early age...