The Loft

Her prose is a model of simplicity and concision; but the pictures which her sentences paint are enigmatic, overdetermined, elusive. We can claim her books for feminism, for eco-politics, for existentialism or psychoanalysis, or we can take them as thrillers or dreams

Her prose is a model of simplicity and concision; but the pictures which her sentences paint are enigmatic, overdetermined, elusive. We can claim her books for feminism, for eco-politics, for existentialism or psychoanalysis, or we can take them as thrillers or dreams

It is the skilful juxtaposition of internal loneliness and isolation with…[a] mysterious, chilling past that brings such emotional power to this unusual book

Marlen Haushofer (Author)
Marie Helene Haushofer was born in Frauenstein, Austria in 1920. Following the Second World War, she worked in her husband's dentistry practice. She began publishing short stories in magazines from 1946. She enjoyed success with her novella The Fifth Year , which was published in 1952 but her most enduring work was The Wall , first published in 1963 and now considered a classic of dystopian fiction. She died in 1970.