Ilse Aichinger is 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 writer noted for her accounts of her persecution by the Nazis because of her Jewish ancestry.

Life

Aichinger was born in 1921 along with her twin sister, Helga, to a Jewish doctor (her mother) and a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 teacher. She spent her childhood 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...

 and Vienna, where her family was subjected to Nazi persecution

Persecution

Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation,...

 starting in 1933. Aichinger began to study medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 in 1945, working as a writer on the side. In her first novel, Das vierte Tor (The Fourth Gate), she wrote of her own experience under Nazism.

After studying for five semesters, Aichinger interrupted her studies in medicine again in 1948 in order to finish her second novel, Die größere Hoffnung (The Greater Hope).

In 1953, she married the German writer Günter Eich

Günter Eich

Günter Eich was a German lyricist, dramatist, and author. He was born in Lebus, on the Oder River, and educated in Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris....

.

In 1955, Aichinger was awarded the Immermann-Preis by the city of Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 and in 1956, she joined the Akademie der Künste

Akademie der Künste

The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...

 of Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. In 1957, Aichinger won the Literaturpreis der Freien Hansestadt Bremen. In 1963, Aichinger moved to Großgmain, near Salzburg

Salzburg

-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...

. In 1971, she was awarded the Nelly-Sachs-Preis.

Reviewing a 1957 volume of her short works in translation, The Bound Man and Other Stories, Anthony Boucher

Anthony Boucher

Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...

 described Aichinger as "a sort of concise Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

," praising the title story for its "narrative use of multi-valued symbolism."

She was honered the German international literary Petrarca-Preis

Petrarca-Preis

Petrarca-Preis is a European literary award named after the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch. It was founded in 1975 by German art historian and publisher Hubert Burda, and is primarily designed for contemporary European poets, but also epicists appear in the list of...

 in 1982

1982 in literature

The year 1982 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*La Bicyclette Bleue by Régine Deforges becomes France's best selling novel ever.-New books:...

. After 1985 Aichinger increasingly retreated from public life. In 1987, she received the Europalia-Literatur-Preis, and in 1991, she was awarded the Großer Literaturpreis of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste|Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste. Other honors included the Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis für Literatur in 1995 and the 2001 Joseph-Breitbach-Preis, which she received along with W. G. Sebald

W. G. Sebald

W. G. Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature...

 and Markus Werner.

Aichinger is the aunt of artist Ruth Rix

Ruth Rix

Ruth Rix is an artist based in Brighton, England who works across the visual arts, with a particular interest in painting. Her work is in private collections.-Early life:...

.

Works

• Das vierte Tor (1945)
• Die größere Hoffnung (1948)
• Spiegelgeschichte (1949)
• Der Gefesselte (1953)
• Das Fenster-Theater (1954)
• Kleist, Moos, Fasane (1987)
• Film und Verhängnis (2001)

Translations

• The bound Man and other stories. Translated by Eric Mosbacher. Secker&Warburg, London 1955
• Selected stories and dialogs. Ed. by James C. Alldridge. Pergamon Press, Oxford, New York 1966 (= The Commonwealth and International library. Pergamon Oxford German Series)
• Selected Poetry and Prose. Ed. and translated by Allen H. Chappel. With an introduction by Lawrence L. Langer. Logbridge-Rhodes, Durnago, Col. 1983

External links

• AICHINGER, Ilse International Who's Who. accessed September 1, 2006.