Elfriede Jelinek was born in Muerzzuschlag, Styria, the daughter of a chemist of Czech-Jewish origin and a mother from a prosperous Vienna family. E. Jelinek was educated in Vienna, where after graduating from the Albertsgymnasium in 1964, she studied theater and art history at the University of Vienna. From an early age she also studied playing the piano, organ and recorder at the Vienna Conservatory and later she studied composition and in 1970 she received her organist diploma.
E. Jelinek began her literary career in the mid 1960s. She made her debut with the collection Lisas Schatten (Munich, 1967). Her writing took a socially critical direction. Her satirical novel Wir sind Lockvoegel Baby was published in Hamburg, 1970, and her Michael: Ein Jugendbuch fuer die Infantilgesellschaft followed in 1972. From 1970 to 1973 she was a member of the Arbeitkreises oesterreichischer Literaturproduzenten.
In 1972 Elfriede moved to Berlin and in 1973 she spent a few months in Rome. In 1974 she married Gottfried Huengsberg, who in the 1960s belonged to the circle of the German director Werner Fassbinder. Elfriede Jelinek divided her time between Vienna and Munich. From 1973 to 1992 she was a member of the Grazer Autorenversammlung. Jelinek joined the Austrian Communist Party in 1974, but left it in 1991.
From about 1980 she was a reviewer at the Austrian monthly magazine Extrablatt and co-worker at the Berlin magazine Der schwarze Botin. After 1993 she served as Honorary President of the Austrian Dramatists Association.
Her novels include: Die Liebhaberinnen (Hamburg, 1975; “Women as Lovers”, 1994); Die Ausgesperrten (Hamburg, 1980; “Wonderful, Wonderful Times”, London, 1990) and the autobiographically based Die Klavierspielerin (Hamburg, 1983) (“The Piano Teacher, 1988; film version by Michael Haneke, 2001), each depicting a pitiless world, full of violence injustice, submission, and oppression. In her Lust (Hamburg, 1989, “Lust”, 1992) she criticizes the modern society by describing sexual violence against women as the actual template for our culture. The Gier. Ein Unterhaltungsroman (2000), is a study in the cold-blooded practice of male power. Der Kinder der Toten was published in Hamburg in 1995. E. Jelinek is also known as a successful playwrigt: her first radio play: Wenn die Sonne sinkt ist fuer Manche schon Bueroschluss from 1974, was favorably received. Some of her plays include Totenauberg (1991); Ein Sportstuek (1998); In den Alpen (Berlin, 2002), and Der Tod und das Maedchen (I-V, 2003). E. Jelinek has translated works by Thomas Pynchon, Georges Feydeau, Eugine Labiche and more. She has also written film scripts and an opera libretto.
Elfriede Jelinek received many prizes and awards: The Young Austrian Culture Week Poetry and Prose Prize (1969); the Austrian University Students’ Poetry Prize (1969), the Austrian State Literature Stipendium (1972), the City of Bad Gandersheim’s Roswitha Memorial Medal (1978), The West German Interior Ministry Prize for Film Writing (1979), The West German Ministry of Education and Art Appreciation Prize (1983), the City of Cologne Heinrich Boell Prize (1986), the Province of Styria Literature Prize (1987), the City of Vienna Literature Appreciation Prize (1989), the City of Aachen Walter Hasenclever Prize (1994), the Bremer Literature Prize (1996), the Georg Buechner Prize (1998), the Berlin Theatre Prize (2002), the City of Duesseldorf Heinrich Heine Prize (2002), the Muelheimer Theatre Prize (2002, 2004), the Elsa Lasker Schueler Prize (for her entire dramatic work), Mainz (2003), the Lessing Critics’ Prize, Wolfenbuettel (2004), the Stig Dagerman Prize, Ivkarleby (2004), The Blind War Veterans’ Radio Theatre Prize, Berlin (2004).
In 2004, Elfriede Jelinek became the Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature.