Franz Innerhofer
Franz Innerhofer was an Austrian author born on May 2, 1944, in Krimml, Salzburg. His early life was marked by hardship; after being born out of wedlock, he faced a challenging upbringing on a family farm, which he later described as harsh and grueling. At seventeen, he ran away to become an apprentice blacksmith, where he rediscovered his passion for reading and learning. This intellectual awakening led him to pursue education in Salzburg, where he earned a secondary-school diploma and later attended the University of Salzburg, although he left after three years. Innerhofer gained widespread recognition for his autobiographical novel, *Beautiful Days*, which resonated with many readers for its depiction of the struggles of farm life, despite facing backlash from critics who felt it misrepresented rural experiences. He continued to explore similar themes in subsequent works, which formed a trilogy, with mixed critical reception over time. Ultimately, despite his initial success, Innerhofer struggled with depression and took his own life on January 19, 2002, in Graz, Austria. His legacy remains a complex one, reflecting the tensions between personal experience and broader societal narratives.
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Subject Terms
Franz Innerhofer
Writer
- Born: May 2, 1944
- Birthplace: Krimml, Salzburg, Austria
- Died: January 19, 2002
- Place of death: Graz, Styria, Austria
Biography
Franz Innerhofer was born out of wedlock on May 2, 1944, in Krimml, Salzburg, Austria, to Rupert Innerhofer, a farmer, and Elise Bernhard Brugger, a farm girl. Elise placed the infant with a foster family for two years, then married and brought him back to live with her. When Franz was six, he went to live on his biological father’s farm, later describing his next eleven years as a period of extremely harsh treatment and grueling work.
At seventeen he ran away and became an apprentice blacksmith/machinist. The family with whom he was apprenticed encouraged him to read and develop language skills. His discovery of intellectual life so inspired him that after his apprentice years he journeyed to Salzburg to become a part of that life. Enrolling in evening classes to earn a secondary-school diploma, he supported himself first through a Salzburg factory job and afterwards by janitorial work. Upon graduating, he won a scholarship to the University of Salzburg, but, disenchanted, left the university after three years.
Despairing and nearly suicidal, Innerhofer strove to channel his emotions into writing. The result was the autobiographical, ironically titled Beautiful Days, a story about a boy’s struggle to escape the tyranny of a family farm. The novel promptly won three literary awards, including the Bremen Literature Prize, and made Innerhofer a young literary sensation.
Thousands of readers affirmed that Beautiful Days reflected their own experience of farm life. This resonance, however, made the story a target for exponents of the German-language genre known as Heimatroman, which celebrates idyllic Alpine village life. Austrian and German farmers called for a ban on the book—and the 1981 television film version—protesting that their way of life had been unfairly attacked. Innerhofer’s own father denounced the book at a press conference.
Meanwhile, Innerhofer produced Schattseite (shade side), continuing the autobiographical treatment begun in Schöne Tage. This story—which would become the second part of a trilogy—follows the hero as he escapes the farm and becomes an apprentice machinist. The last volume of the trilogy, Die gro�en Wörter (big words), presents the hero in Salzburg engaged in intellectual pursuits, living, like Innerhofer himself, as a factory worker, then as a janitor and night-school student, and later as a university student.
By this time, however, the intellectual aspirations that had energized him have begun to fade. The protagonist becomes an icon of twentieth century doubt and anxiety. Ominously, he begins to consort with petty criminals and neo-Nazis. While some critics believed that Die gro�en Wörter accurately portrays the uncertainties of contemporary life, others suggested that Innerhofer had simply lost control of his artistic material. Still others viewed the entire trilogy as a parable of social history, spanning the feudal agricultural system, nineteenth century village life, and the urban twentieth century. In this view, Innerhofer’s work placed him among the leading contemporary fiction writers in German.
Reviewers found Innerhofer’s later works feeble and confused, and the critics all but abandoned him. Amid reports of extreme depression and despair, Innerhofer committed suicide at his home in Graz, Styria, Austria, on January 19, 2002.