Since she arrived on the Austrian literary scene with her novel Die Klosterschule (The Parochial School, 1968), Barbara Frischmuth's reputation has grown in tandem with her literary production in a variety of forms and styles: primarily novels, but also short stories, children's books, essays, and experiments in drama and lyric poetry. Today she is the best-known woman writer in Austria. She received the Austrian Prize for Childrens' Books in 1972, the Literary Prize of Styria in 1973, the Anton Wildgans Prize in 1974, the Prize of the City of Vienna, the Award of the Cultural Circle of German Industry, and Honor Roll of the Hans Christian Andersen Prize in 1975, the Sandoz Prize for Literature in 1977, the Literary Prize of the City of Vienna in 1979, the Gedok Prize for Literature in 1983, and the Ida Dehmel Prize also in 1983.

Frischmuth was born in 1941 in the resort community of Alt-Aussee, Styria, where her parents owned...