France awarded Austrian Literature Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek the insignia of Commander in the Order of Arts and Letters on Sunday April 14, rewarding a “monumental” and “vigilant” work. His literature “helps us rebuild our critical spirit while respecting the universal values in which we believe,” declared French Ambassador Gilles Pécout during the small-group ceremony in Vienna, attended by AFP.
It “always contributes to freedom and most often to the freedom of the weakest,” added the diplomat, recently appointed president of the National Library of France.
The woman of letters, who very rarely appears in public and usually declines honors, “thanked” France and spoke of her relationship with the French language, “coming from childhood” and which she masters very well. GOOD.
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Elfriede Jelinek, 77, is one of the most read and studied German-language writers in France. Since 2009, she has been one of ten German-speaking authors prescribed by National Education. She was translated into French for the first time in 1988 and her book Les Amantes is included in the list of the 100 best novels in the world, established by the daily Le Monde in 2019. Her work began in 1967 with a first collection of poetry. Then seizing various facts, she is a pioneer in denouncing systemic sexual violence against women, of which the language decided by men is a vector. She was one of the very first to open a website in the 1990s.
The Pianist by Michael Haneke, in 2001, based on the novel by Elfriede Jelinek, with Isabelle Huppert, Benoït Magimel, Annie Girardot, Eva Green….
Her incessant experimental work on mastering the language made her known outside the Germanic world and her novel The Pianist (Grand Jury Prize at Cannes) was adapted in 2001 by Michael Haneke for the cinema. Isabelle Huppert, lead role in the film, which received the Best Actor Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001, recognizes Elfriede Jelinek as a “great classical writer”.
In 2004, she joined the very closed circle of women distinguished by the Nobel Prize for Literature. The academy praises the importance of its language, which demonstrates how “the clichés of the entertainment industry” paralyze resistance “to class injustices and sexual domination.” Elfriede Jelinek is also the author of numerous plays in which she addresses all current issues and the premieres of which are still an event in the Germanic world.