“I don’t invent anything, I think, I have never invented anything, altered – yes, invented – no.” These words of the Austrian author Thomas Bernhard point to a phenomenon that has always been a topic of discussion amongst researchers into his life and work. Few other Austrian authors in recent decades have invited such an obvious connection between biography and literature. At the same time the moment of creative stylisation indicates that the relationship between these two areas is one of complicated transformation.

Photograph: Thomas Bernhard Jahrbuch 2004.
Eds. Huber, Martin; Mittermayer, Manfred;
Schmidt-Dengler, Wendelin; Vidulic, Svjetlan Lacko

The Thomas Bernhard Archive, founded in 2001 to enable research into the author’s literary remains and unpublished works, provides the foundation both for the current 22-volume Suhrkamp edition of Bernhard’s complete works, begun in 2003, and for a first complete biography. The Bernhard Archive, housed in the Villa Stonborough-Wittgenstein in Gmunden, Upper Austria, contains large amounts of typescripts, early drafts and final versions of Bernhard’s works, as well as a large number of private documents made available for research. A large portion of his correspondence, originally part of the family’s private archive, is also to be found there – particularly letters to and from publishers and theatres. Their importance for research into the genesis and chronology of Bernhard’s texts, as well as into the interpretation of his work and his biography, cannot be emphasized enough.

The exhibition “Thomas Bernhard: Essential Companions and Legacy”, conceived by Martin Huber and Manfred Mittermayer, which was first shown in the Austrian National Library in Vienna in 2001 and has since successfully toured several countries, represented the first thorough exploration of the connection between the literary and “real” reality that characterizes Bernhard’s writing. Whilst taking the due care necessary when reconstructing the application of real experiences to literature, the research for this exhibition confirmed one basic insight: There are undeniable parallels between Bernhard’s biography and his texts.

The planned Thomas Bernhard biography aims to provide new insights into the author’s life and work through detailed study and presentation of the archival material, but without turning a blind eye to the element of self-presentation which played such an important role in Bernhard’s public appearances and reputation. Above all, the biography will contain reflections on the connection between the events experienced by Bernhard in real life and those he wrote about in his literary works, on the possibilities and the limitations of drawing parallels between the two areas of biography and literature. One should not forget that Bernhard attempted a detailed portrayal of his own “biography” (as he himself put it) in the form of five autobiographical novels, which researchers have always seen as a mixture of poetry and truth.

Contact: Manfred Mittermayer