Elfriede Jelinek
Austrian playwright and novelist
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“Elfriede Jelinek.” thisDay, thisday.info/people/elfriede-jelinek/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.
Elfriede Jelinek. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 27, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/elfriede-jelinek/
“Elfriede Jelinek.” thisDay. Accessed October 27, 2026. https://thisday.info/people/elfriede-jelinek/.
Who is Elfriede Jelinek?
Elfriede Jelinek (German: [ɛlˈfʁiːdə ˈjɛlinɛk]; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. Elfriede Jelinek was born in Mürzzuschlag, Styria, Austria, the daughter of Olga Ilona (née Buchner), a personnel director, and Friedrich Jelinek. She was raised in Vienna by her Romanian-German Catholic mother and a non-observant Czech Jewish father (whose surname Jelínek means "little deer" in Czech). Her mother's family was of an upper middle-class background, while her father was a working-class socialist. Her father was a chemist, who managed to avoid persecution during the Second World War by working in strategically important industrial production. However, many of his relatives were murdered during the Holocaust.
Historical significance
She is one of the most decorated authors to write in German and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature 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". She is considered to be among the most important living playwrights of the German language.
Cite this page
“Elfriede Jelinek.” thisDay, thisday.info/people/elfriede-jelinek/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.
Elfriede Jelinek. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 27, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/elfriede-jelinek/
“Elfriede Jelinek.” thisDay. Accessed October 27, 2026. https://thisday.info/people/elfriede-jelinek/.