An Austrian who detests Austria and Austrians, a human being who confronts humanity with the greatest mistrust, a writer who puts his faith in writing even while his every sentence attests to his doubt of its efficacy, a man for whom life is at best grotesque and the grave is the goal cannot help attracting the brighter children of a century that flirts with torment and skirts doom. Such a writer is Thomas Bernhard, the 53-year-old poet, playwright, novelist and storyteller, whose following among literati, intellectuals and cultural fellow travelers grows steadily while the rest of the world blithely ignores him.

Three of his novels—"Gargoyles" (whose German title, "Verstörung," a word coined by Mr. Bernhard, is bleaker but untranslatable), "The Lime Works" and "Correction"—have been available in English translations. Now, so is the novella "Concrete" (meaning the building material, not the opposite of "abstract"), first...