Herbert Eisenreich
Herbert Eisenreich was an Austrian writer born on February 7, 1925, in Linz, Austria. His early life was marked by financial hardship following the death of his father, leading him to pursue education through unconventional means, such as tutoring and self-guided learning in Vienna. Eisenreich served in the military during World War II but maintained a non-violent stance and was captured by American forces. After the war, he shifted his focus from formal education to writing, eventually starting his publishing career in 1946. He is best known for his autobiographical short stories that explore the intricacies of everyday life in postwar Austria, characterized by a precise and ironic style. Throughout his career, Eisenreich received numerous accolades, including the Austrian State Prize and the Franz Kafka Literature Prize, reflecting his impact on literature. He was married four times and spent his final years in Vienna, where he passed away in 1986. His works have been translated into many languages, showcasing the universal relevance of his insights into human experience.
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Subject Terms
Herbert Eisenreich
Fiction and Nonfiction Writer, Poet and Playwright
- Born: February 7, 1925
- Birthplace: Linz, Austria
- Died: June 6, 1986
- Place of death: Vienna, Austria
Biography
Herbert Eisenreich was born in Linz, Austria, on February 7, 1925. His family was quickly thrown into financial difficulty upon the death of his bank-clerk father, and his mother was left alone to care for three children. After elementary school, he attended a free school for gifted children in Vienna and then matriculated to the Linz Realgymnasium, where he supported himself by tutoring and cleaning the school. He failed his exit examinations due to a lack of interest in his studies. The young Eisenreich preferred to seek an education through visiting local courtrooms and observing the social tensions and interesting characters on display.
Still a teenager, Eisenreich joined the military in 1943, although he was not sympathetic to the Nazi cause and remained proud that he never killed anyone during his brief military service (he was wounded in the shoulder and taken prisoner by the Americans). After the war, he passed his school exams with distinction and began to study philology, German literature, and drama at the University of Vienna, but he quit his studies in order to earn money as a messenger for a Vienna newspaper and to dedicate his time to writing.
Eisenreich began his publishing career in 1946; he won a newspaper short-story contest with an autobiographical entry about a young soldier who returns from the army. Eisenreich’s writing, evident in more than one hundred short stories and six-hundred-page novel “fragment,” was marked by an autobiographical focus on life in Vienna and usually centered on a brief interchange, misunderstanding, or conflict wrought in exact detail, precise prose, and wry irony. Eisenreich felt that art should never be political; thus, his stories capture the significance of a moment in quotidian detail. They seek to understand how average people make sense and meaning out of the common patterns of everyday life.
Although Eisenreich traveled through Central and Western Europe as a freelance writer and newspaper correspondent for many years, he is remembered for his ability to capture the drama of Austrian daily life in elegant short stories about the postwar generation. His stories have been translated in many languages, including English. During his lifetime he received the Prix d’Italia in 1957 for his radio play Wovon wir leben und waran wir sterben (what we live on and what we die of), the Austrian State Prize in 1958, the George Mackensen Prize in 1971, the Peter Altenberg Prize in 1984, the Franz Theodor Csokor Prize in 1985, the Franz Kafka Literature Prize in 1985, and the Medal of Honor of the City of Vienna in 1985. Eisenreich was divorced three times and was survived by his fourth wife, Maria Pesti Eisenreich. He died in 1986 of a brain tumor and was buried in Vienna, the city to which he returned to throughout his life and where he made his home during his final nineteen years.