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18 December 2019

Thomas Bernhard’s fiction of the meaningless

His work was powered by bile and dread, but the Austrian novelist found laughter in the dark.

By Chris Power

Austrian author Thomas Bernhard. Tonhof. Maria Saal. Carinthia. Photograph. Christmas 1957/58 (Photo by Helmut Baar

I first encountered Thomas Bernhard in a university Waterstones in 1997, when I picked up a book because of its cool, doomy cover and intriguing title: The Voice Imitator. It fell open to a very short story called “Hotel Waldhaus”:

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