Brigitte Schwaiger was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n author born in Freistadt

Freistadt

Freistadt is a small Austrian town in the state of Upper Austria in the region Mühlviertel. With a population of approximately 7,500 residents, it is a trade centre for local villages. Freistadt is the economic centre of a district of the same name District Freistadt...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

She was the daughter of a doctor, while her great grandmother was Carola Seligmann, an opera singer who died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp

Theresienstadt concentration camp

Theresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders...

.

Schwaiger studied two semesters of Psychology, Germanic and Romance linguistics in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. In 1968, she married a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 Officer, and moved with him to Madrid and then Mallorca before divorcing him four years later. She then attended the Pedagogic Academy in Linz

Linz

Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...

, where she played part-time in cellar theatres and worked as a production assistant at ORF

ORF

ORF may refer to:* ORF , the Austrian public service broadcaster.* Open reading frame, a portion of the genome.* The IATA airport code for Norfolk International Airport in Norfolk, Virginia.* ORF format , Olympus raw image file format....

 (Österreichischer Rundfunk - Austrian Broadcasting).

Her first novel, Wie kommt das Salz ins Meer? (1977) (How does the Salt get in the Sea?) became a sensational bestseller which sold several hundred thousand copies throughout the German language region. The heavily autobiographical first-person story tells of the monotony of everyday married life and of unsuccessful attempts to flee this world. In 1988 the novel was dramatised in a German film by Peter Beauvais, starring Nicolin Kunz and Siemen Rühaak.

Although her later works did not achieve the success of her first novel, Fallen lassen, a report of her experience in psychiatry, was met with critical acclaim.

Works

• Wie kommt das Salz ins Meer? (1977)
• Mein spanisches Dorf (1978)
• Lange Abwesenheit (1980)
• Die Galizianerin (1982)
• Der Himmel ist süß – Eine Beichte (1984)
• Mit einem möcht' ich leben (1987) (poems)
• Liebesversuche (1989)
• Schönes Licht (1990)
• Tränen beleben den Staub (1991)
• Der rote Faden (1992)
• Jaro heißt Frühling (1994)
• Ein langer Urlaub (1997)
• Fallen lassen (2006) (describes her experience with psychiatry)