The Piano Teacher

Description

Controversial, modern, and unafraid to look the reader straight in the eye, "Serpent's Tail Classics" are books for life. This is the most famous work by Nobel Prize winning author - now a "Serpent's Tail Classic". A haunting tale of morbid voyeurism and masochism, "The Piano Teacher" is one of the greatest contemporary European novels. Erika Kohut teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory by day. But by night she trawls the porn shows of Vienna while her mother, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, waits up for her. Into this emotional pressure-cooker bounds music student and ladies' man, Walter Klemmer. With Walter as her student, Erika spirals out of control, consumed by the ecstacy of self-destruction. First published in 1983, "The Piano Teacher" is Elfriede Jelinek's masterpiece.

Reviews

'In this demented love story the hunter is the hunted, pain is pleasure, and spite and self-contempt seep from every pore.' The Guardian 'A dazzling performance that will make the blood run cold' Walter Abish

Author description

Elfriede Jelinek was born in Austria in 1946 and grew up in Vienna where she attended the famous Music Conservatory. The leading Austrian writer of her generation, she has been awarded the Heinrich Boll Prize for her contribution to German literature. The film of The Piano Teacher by Michael Haneke won the three main prizes at Cannes in 2001. In 2004, Elfriede Jelinek was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.