On the Death of Friederike Mayröcker

We are mourning the death of Friederike Mayröcker, who died today in Vienna at the age of 96.

The Austrian writer was one of the most important contemporary authors in the German-speaking world. Friederike Mayröcker was born in Vienna on December 20, 1924. After graduating from high school, she worked as an English teacher at various Viennese secondary schools between 1946 and 1969. She began her literary career as early as 1939. After publishing her first poems in the Viennese avant-garde magazine Plan, she published her first book in 1956. Since then, poetry and prose, stories and radio plays, children's books and stage texts have followed. In 1954 she met the Austrian writer Ernst Jandl, who became a close friend and later her partner.

Over the course of her career, Friederike Mayröcker has received numerous awards, most recently the Austrian Book Prize and the Günter Eich Prize. In 2015, she received honorary citizenship of the city of Vienna.

Suhrkamp Verlag most recently published Friederike Mayröcker's prose work da ich morgens und moosgrün. Ans Fenster trete, which was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2021.