My Prizes

Completed in 1980 but published here for the first time, My Prizes is an accounting - prize by prize, blow by blow - of the background and circumstances of reception of nine literary prizes that Thomas Bernhard was awarded between 1963 and 1980, followed by some of the speeches he delivered on those occasions - each of which was also the occasion for scandal or worse. The result is a portrait of the artist as prizewinner and prize farceur: sardonic, laconic, biting-the-hand, relishing both the world and himself with bitter amusement. 'Thank goodness for Thomas Bernhard, the most truthful, the funniest and the most musical of writers since Marcel Proust.' Gabriel Josipovici See more