In a quaint Austrian ski resort, things are not quite what they seem. Hermann, the manager of a paper mill, has decided that sexual gratification begins at home. Which means Gerti – his wife and property. Gerti is not asked how she feels about the use Hermann puts her to. She is the receptacle into which Hermann pours his juices. The long-suffering and battered Gerti thinks that she has found her saviour and love in Michael, a student who rescues her after a day of vigorous use by her husband. But Michael is on his way up the Austrian political ladder, and he is, after all, a man.

A dazzling performance, Lust confirms Elfriede Jelinek’s position as the most corrosive chronicler of the war of the sexes.

About the Author
Elfriede Jelinek was born in the Austrian alpine resort of Murzzuschlag and grew up in Vienna, where she attended the famous Music Conservatory. The leading Austrian writer of her generation, her other works include Women as Lovers, Lust, and The Piano Teacher, now a prize winning film (all published by Serpent’s Tail), as well as plays and essays. In 1986 she was awarded the Heinrich Boll prize for her contribution to German language literature, and in 1998 she received the prestigious Georg Buchner Prize for the entirety of her work. In 2004, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power.