Thomas Bernhard

(1931 - 1989)

Thomas Bernhard published his first novel, Frost, in 1963. Its unrelentingly pessimistic prose met with many detractors. “Don’t people have any sense of humor or what?” he later wrote. “It always makes me laugh, even today. Whenever I am bored or there is some sort of tragic period, I open a book of mine. That will most likely get me to laugh.” In his will he stated that his books and plays could not be published or performed in Austria until the copyright terms had expired.