Marlen Haushofer

Shaun Whiteside

The Wall

A haunting feminist sci-fi masterpiece and international bestseller that is “as absorbing as Robinson Crusoe” (Doris Lessing) While vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman awakens one morning to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. With a cat, a dog, and a cow as her sole companions, she learns how to survive and cope with her loneliness. Allegorical yet deeply personal and absorbing, The Wall is at once a critique of modern civilization, a nuanced and loving portrait of a relationship between a woman and her animals, a thrilling survival story, a Cold War-era dystopian adventure, and a truly singular feminist classic.

'Every joint and sinew of the story is restless with a sense of threat' London Review of Books 'The air trembled, gold and green and clear, at the edges of the forest' A woman takes a holiday in the Austrian mountains, spending a few days with her cousin and his wife in their hunting lodge. When the couple fails to return from a walk, the woman sets off to look for them. But her journey reaches a sinister and inexplicable dead end. She discovers only a transparent wall behind which there seems to be no life. Trapped alone behind the mysterious wall she begins the arduous work of survival. This is at once a simple account of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one's name, and simultaneously a disturbing dissection of the place of human beings in the natural world. 'Brilliant in its sustainment of dread, in its peeling away of old layers of reality to expose a raw way of seeing and feeling.' Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love **PERFECT FOR FANS OF THE YELLOW WALLPAPER, STATION ELEVEN AND THE MARTIAN** VINTAGE EARTH is a series of books that reveals our ever-changing relationship with the environment. These are stories old and young, set in worlds real or imagined, that allow us to explore our connection to the natural world. Transformative, wild, surprising and essential, these novels take on the most urgent story of our times.

Discover this addictive dystopia from the Vintage Earth series

The Wall by Marlen HaushoferPaperback

roman

Duvar

Heide Kouba

Karin Brandauer

nach dem Roman "Die Wand" von Marlen Haushofer

Die Wand

Ściana

Vi dödar Stella

Door een merkwaardig voorval raakt een vrouw geïsoleerd van de rest van de wereld.

De wand

A fal

Himmel, der nirgendwo endet.

Schreckliche Treue. Gesammelte Erzählungen.

Wir töten Stella / Das fünfte Jahr

Jurek Becker

Christine Becker

And Other Stories

Wall

Eine Handvoll Leben

A 1960s Austrian housewife is forced to review her past when pages from old diaries begin to arrive mysteriously in the letter box at her family home. Each day after the windows are cleaned and the baking is done, she forces herself to read and burn the evidence of her troubled youth. Marlen Haushofer is most famous for The Wall, her only novel to have been translated into English before now. She won numerous awards in her life time, including the Grand Austrian State Prize for literature. Although nearly forgotten after her death in 1970, it has since become a feminist classic.

The Loft

Claustrophobic and shattering, this is the story of one ordinary woman unable to save a teenager in her care. It is the story of Stella... Stella is a friend's nineteen-year-old daughter who has come to live with Anna and her family. Unloved and neglected, Stella's presence disturbs the already tense and tumultuous household. She lodges uncomfortably in their lives, whilst Anna struggles to bring warmth and welcome to the home. Her son continues to be gloomy and her daughter oblivious. Meanwhile Richard, Anna's adulterous husband, pretends not to notice Stella at all... Marlen Haushofer, author of The Wall, is the undisputed mistress of sustained dread and this gripping short novel deserves to be rediscovered. TRANSLATED BY SHAUN WHITESIDE 'This potent 1958 novella from Austrian writer Haushofer takes the form of a mother's agitated confession... This one hits hard' Publisher's Weekly 'Chillingly unillusioned... A fable about the habitual moral inertia of educated people' London Review of Books 'Haushofer is a rather terrifying writer... Killing Stella limns a world of guilty secrets and repressions' New Yorker

Killing Stella

An Austrian housewife sits in her loft intent on her drawings of birds and insects. Then one day a disturbing package arrives in the post... The narrator of this story spends her free time in her loft. It is a retreat where she can draw undisturbed. It is also a retreat from her dull and dissatisfied husband, a man who sighs unhappily even when she sneezes. Their grown-up children are living independent lives and the house is very quiet. Her dreams are filled with domestic drudgery. The arrival of the parcel threatens her quiet equilibrium. It contains extracts from the narrator's diary, written twenty years before. They date back to a time when she was sent away by her husband to a remote cottage in a bid to 'cure' her from unexplained sudden deafness. More mysterious packages arrive. Who is sending them? And what did happened all those years ago in the forest? 'A thrilling novel... What gives this book its tremendous power? First the voice is charming, with a skittish beauty throughout... But there is also disarming honesty, and a lack of vanity, which appeals as only truth can’ John Self, Guardian TRANSLATED BY AMANDA PRANTERA

The chilling novel from the author of the cult classic The Wall

A woman's weekend away in the Austrian mountains takes an inexplicable and sinister turn - and becomes a fight for survival. A woman takes a holiday in the Austrian mountains, spending a few days with her cousin and his wife in their hunting lodge. When the couple fails to return from a walk, the woman sets off to look for them. But her journey reaches a sinister and inexplicable dead end. She discovers only a transparent wall behind which there seems to be no life. Trapped alone behind the mysterious wall she begins the arduous work of survival. This is at once a simple account of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one's name, and simultaneously a disturbing dissection of the place of human beings in the natural world. 'Every joint and sinew of the story is restless with a sense of threat' London Review of Books 'Brilliant in its sustainment of dread, in its peeling away of old layers of reality to expose a raw way of seeing and feeling.' Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love TRANSLATED BY SHAUN WHITESIDE

Discover This Addictive Dystopia from the Vintage Earth Series

A haunting story of a childhood in the Austrian countryside from the author of The Wall

Marlen Haushofer

Books

Your next favorite book is out there