Thomas Bernhard, the Austrian State buys the archive with 150 unpublished works – Corriere.it

The Austrian National Library has acquired the private archive of the Austrian writer and playwright Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989), among the greatest authors of German-speaking literature of the twentieth century. It consists of 30,000 pages of manuscripts, typescripts and corrected drafts, 15 boxes of correspondence and about 150 unpublished texts. According to the Vienna press, the purchase price from the heirs was 2,100,000 euros, supported thanks to funds from the Ministry of Arts and Culture.

Up until the time of the sale, the archive belonged to Bernhard’s physician half-brother Peter Fabjan, who managed it for decades. The purchase was largely financed by the Ministry of Culture. The National Library already has important bequests, for example from Robert Musil, Ingeborg Bachmann and Friederike Mayrcker. For me, this is one of the most important acquisitions in the history of the Austrian National Library, said director Johanna Rachelger. Thomas Bernhard’s work is not only unique in German-language literature after 1945, but also one of the most important of the twentieth century. As well as novels such as Frost (1963),


Disturbance (1967)
, The Loser (1983), With an axe(1984), Extinction (1986), the Austrian author has written numerous plays and poems. The drama Heldenplatz contributed to the debate on Austria’s National Socialist past.

Bernhard’s archive, explains a communiqué from the Viennese institution, survived almost in its entirety, covering the entire literary production and thus providing an insight into a writing process that has hardly ever wavered over the decades. This collection – reads the press release – therefore constitutes an indispensable basis from which the link between Bernhard’s life and work clearly emerges, from the beginning of his writing until his death.

Thomas Bernhard’s literary heritage includes also the writings and letters of his grandfather, the writer Johannes Freumbichler (1881-1949). The archive contains all the published and unpublished works and all the surviving correspondence of the great writer. The correspondence consists of family correspondence, business correspondence and letters from private individuals and institutions. The extensive correspondence with Bernhard’s publishers, above all with Siegfried Unseld and Suhrkamp Verlag, but also with the Residenz-Verlag, allows us to trace the genesis and reception of the books and plays. Bernhard’s relationship with his publishers is as revealing as it is conflicting.

The 15 mail boxes include letters from Ingeborg Bachmann, Werner Bergengruen, Heinrich Bll, Elias Canetti, Peter Handke, Marlen Haushofer, Hans Werner Henze, Bernhard Minetti, Claus Peymann, Hilde Spiel, Siegfried Unseld and Alice and Carl Zuckmayer. The correspondence with Hedwig Stavianicek, Thomas Bernhard’s lifelong companion, occupies a special position in terms of duration, scope and content: this correspondence alone comprises 381 handwritten and typewritten letters from Thomas Bernhard and 245 letters from Hedwig Stavianicek.