Elfriede Jelinek, who was born in 1946 and grew up in Vienna, now lives in Vienna and Munich. She has received numerous awards for her literary works, which include not only novels but also plays, poetry, essays, translations, radio plays, screenplays and opera librettos. Her awards include the Georg Buchner Prize and the Franz Kafka Prize for Literature. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her 'musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's cliches and their subjugating power'.
'Jelinek's work is brave, adventurous, witty, antagonistic and
devastatingly right about the sorriness of human existence, and her
contempt is expressed with surprising chirpiness: it's a wild
ride.' - Guardian
'Translated with verve by Gitta Honegger, [rein GOLD] becomes a
series of monologues without paragraph breaks: a frequent
discordant assault on the senses. A visceral challenge to lazy and
pernicious consumerism [...] Brunnhilde and Wotan may have the
names of gods, but they play down and dirty, their lengthy slanging
match ripe with expletives and references to popular culture and
Marxist and anarchist theory, the most obvious being Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon's slogan "Property is theft." [...] Jelinek's critique is
simultaneously timely and timeless, as Brunnhilde and Wotan's
arguments and digressions map capitalism's progression.' -
Catherine Taylor, Financial Times
'The liveliness of Jelinek's language (in Gitta Honegger's
translation, which deftly renders all manner of wordplay) is
undeniable... rein GOLD is highly evocative of the endless onward
stagger of late capitalism' - Martin Herbert, ArtReview
'Jelinek's prose and arguments are undoubtedly masterful; she is,
despite the never-ending controversy around her boundary-breaking
work, rightfully regarded as one of the greatest living authors
writing in German. Honegger's translation is vivid and equally as
skilled [...] rein GOLD is not a comfortable read, but really,
given the subject matter, should it be? Wagner is not especially
comfortable to sit through either, but you don't go to see his Ring
Cycle for a light, airy performance. You go to see and hear a work
of genius. Important literature is rarely easily digestible.' -
Ella Fox Martens, Soft Punk
'In rein GOLD, Jelinek reimagines the characters of Brunnhilde and
Wotan from Wagner's Ring cycle and transposes them into the context
of modernity. She delivers an impassioned expose of the discontents
of capitalism. Her musical thought is interwoven with myth,
politics, and Wagnerian motifs. Gitta Honegger's excellent
translation allows us to experience the intense flow of her
characters' streams of consciousness entangled in greed and
alienation.' - Xiaolu Guo, author of A Lover's Discourse
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