Marlen haushofer biography sample

Austrian writer (1920–1970)

Marlen Haushofer (born Marie Helene Frauendorfer; 11 April 1920 – 21 March 1970) was an Austrian author, most famous for her novel The Wall (1963).

Biography

Marie Helene Frauendorfer was born in Frauenstein, Municipality Moln in Upper Austria. She attended Catholic boarding school in Linz, and went on to study German literature in Vienna and in Graz. After her school years she settled in Steyr.

In 1941, she married Manfred Haushofer, a dentist, and had two sons, Christian and Manfred. They divorced in 1950, only to remarry each other in 1958.

Work

Haushofer began her writing career in 1946, publishing short stories in newspapers and magazines. In 1952, she published her first book, Das fünfte Jahr, which earned her the Österreichische Förderungspreis für Literatur in 1953. She went on to publish her first novel, A Handful of Life in 1955, and in 1956, she won the Theodor Körner Prize for her contributions to art and culture. In 1958, her novella Killing Stella was published.

The Wall, considered her finest achievement, was completed in 1963. The novel was written out four times in longhand between 1960 and 1963. In a letter written to a friend in 1961, Marlen describes the difficulty with its composition:

I am writing on my novel and everything is very cumbersome because I never have much time, and mainly because I can not embarrass myself. I must continuously inquire whether what I say about animals and plants is actually correct. One can not be precise enough. I would be very happy, indeed, if I were able to write the novel only half as well as I am imagining it in my mind.

Haushofer commented a year later in a letter to the same friend:

I am extremely industrious. My novel is completed in its first draft. I have already completed one hundred pages of the rewrite. Altogether there will be 360 pages. Writing strain

Marlen Haushofer is a major twentieth-century Austrian writer and has been counted among this country’s feminist authors, although she died in 1970, just on the upswing of the “second wave” post-World War II feminist movement in Europe with its copious production of literary and critical texts. Despite the promotion of a prominent literary mentor, Hans Weigel, and the award of prestigious literary prizes – including the Theodor Körner, Arthur Schnitzler, and Austrian State prizes – during her lifetime, she was initially often dismissed as a minor writer. In the 1980s, however, there was an international renaissance of Haushofer’s works. Increased book sales, numerous scholarly studies, a posthumous 1986 Austrian State prize, and a 2000 biography by Daniela Strigl reflect…

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1285 words

Citation: Saur, Pamela S.. "Marlen Haushofer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 June 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11718, accessed 23 February 2025.]

There is no way to the other side! No knocking, no hitting will help. An anonymous woman is stuck in the Alps — completely alone and having to rely entirely on herself. The only creatures at her side: a dog, a cow and a cat.

Alpine nightmare

A transparent, but impenetrable wall separates her from the rest of the world. Beyond it, all life seems to have succumbed to rigor mortis.

Is she the sole survivor of a catastrophe? If there were still people alive, she reflects, airplanes would have overflown the area a long time ago. Yet this fact does not frighten the woman:

"If time exists only in my head, and I'm the last human being, it will end with my death. The thought cheers me. I may be in a position to murder time." 

The setting turns into a surreal nightmare in front of a lush, green backdrop: the idyllic Alpine landscape turns into a gigantic prison.

At some point, the nameless woman realizes that her wrangling merely pushes her to the point of desperation. She comes to accept her complete isolation and begins to organize her survival.

She starts hunting, killing animals to prevent herself from starving. Her existence becomes ascetic, reduced to absolute necessity. The only thing that remains of her former life is the fact that she writes. However, she no longer writes for pleasure, but so as not to lose her mind. Over time, she begins to reflect more and more about her existence up to now.

"I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead."

Radical emancipation?

Haushofer's parable about loneliness was published in 1963, but the book did not enjoy popularity until the 1980s. Sales shot up significantly as the women's movement viewed the novel as a blueprint for radical emancipation.

The peace movement, on the other hand, viewed Haushofer's book as a scenario of post-nuclear apoca

April 11, 1920, Frauenstein (Gemeinde Molln), Austria – March 21, 1970, Vienna, Austria

“External freedom has probably never existed, but neither have I ever known anyone who knew inner freedom.” Marlen Haushofer, The Wall

Marlen Haushofer (born Maria Helene Frauendorfer) was one of Austria's most astute women writers of the immediate postwar period. She was born in Frauenstein, Molln, Austria on April the 11th, 1920. Her father, who had graduated from the forestry school in České Budějovice, practiced the profession of forester in Effertsbach. Her mother was known to be a deeply religious and strict woman.

Haushofer had a tense relationship with her mother since childhood, which was strengthened in June 1924 by the birth of her brother Rudolf, who was four years younger. Because of her mother's distantness, she turned to her father, with whom she shared a more close relation, but he also seemed ambivalent in his behavior. With her brother Rudolf Frauendorfer, to whom she devoted the book Himmel, der nirgendwo endet (Heaven that knows no end), she had close contact during her lifetime.

She went to a Catholic gymnasium that was turned into a public school under the Nazi regime. She started her studies on German Language and Literature, in 1940 in Vienna and later on in Graz. She married the dentist Manfred Haushofer in 1941, they divorced in 1950 but reunited in 1957 and had two sons.

Haushofer lived as a housewife and writer in Steyr after a short episode as an aspiring young author in postwar Vienna. Simone de Beauvoir’s assessment of the European woman’s condition, The second sex (1949), influenced her profoundly. Alienated by the oppressive gender roles in catholic Austria, she nostalgically records her childhood memories, associated with nature, life in the country and freedom from social constraints in Die Vergissmeinnichtquelle (The Spring of Forget-me-nots), and published in 1956.

In the year 1969 came out