SOURCE: “Peter Handke,” in The Modern German Novel, edited by Keith Bullivant, Oswald Wolff, 1987, pp. 155-70.

In the following essay, Linstead provides an overview of Handke's literary career and discusses the major themes, artistic preoccupations, and narrative strategies of his novels.

Peter Handke burst upon the West German literary scene in 1966, not with a novel or a play, although Die Hornissen (1966) and Publikumsbeschimpfung (1966) had already been accepted for publication, but with a tirade. At the meeting of the Group 47 in Princeton (USA) that year, Handke stood up and vehemently attacked the literature he had heard read. This caused a sensation and was widely reported in the arts sections of all the major West German papers as well as in the weeklies Die Zeit and Der Spiegel. Rapidly, however, the criticisms Handke gave voice to were lost under the tumult surrounding what was seen as a media event, a...