Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989), a literary figure of international acclaim and arguably Austria's greatest post-World War II writer, became the first of his generation to expose unrelentingly his country's pathological denial of complicity in the Holocaust. Bernhard's writings and indeed his own biography reflect Austria's fraught efforts to define itself as a nation following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy and the trauma of World War II. Repeatedly he scandalized the nation with novels, plays, and public statements that exposed the convoluted ways Austrians were attempting to come to terms with their Nazi past - or defiantly avoiding doing so. This book, the first comprehensive biography of Thomas Bernhard in English, examines his life and work and their intricate relationship to Austria's geographical, political, and cultural transformations in the twentieth century.