The Jelinek Handbook was released in 2013 in the series “Handbooks on Personalities” by Metzler publishing house.  As of 2020, an updated version is being compiled in cooperation of the Joint Research Platform and the Elfriede Jelinek Research Centre. It is the first comprehensive presentation of Elfriede Jelinek’s life, work and reception.

Biographical aspects, artistic contexts, the feminist and political dedication of the author are equally dealt with as the aesthetical strategies and writing processes of the Austrian Nobel laureate.

At the centre of attention is the compact depiction of Jelinek’s works with basic information on the genesis, sources, intertexts, formal and contentual aspects. Important topics and discourses in Jelinek’s work – such as economy, patriarchal structures, images of women, the home country, nature and National Socialism – are analysed in encyclopedic articles.

Further on, artistic, theatrical and scientific debates with Jelinek are discussed and the public debates and scandals that existed around Jelinek are presented.

The handbook imparts Jelinek’s work from an interdisciplinary perspective and provides an overview of the current state of research.

Authors of the handbook:

Evelyn Annuß, Inge Arteel, Peter Clar, Renata Cornejo, Uta Degner, Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, Christine Ehardt, Konstanze Fliedl, Christa Gürtler, Dagmar von Hoff, Hilde Haider-Pregler, Ulrike Haß, Beate Hochholdinger-Reiterer, Pia Janke, Karen Jürs-Munby, Stefanie Kaplan, Elisabeth Kargl, Klaus Kastberger, Maria Regina Kecht, Christian Klein, Teresa Kovacs, Stefan Krammer, Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger, Robert Leucht, Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, Bärbel Lücke, Monika Meister, Gunter Martens, Moira Mertens, Alexandra Millner, Lea Müller-Dannhausen, Fatima Naqvi, Artur Pelka, Sabine Perthold, Katharina Pewny, Evelyne Polt-Heinzl, Gerhard Scheit, Christian Schenkermayr, Franziska Schößler, Karl Ivan Solibakke, Daniela Strigl, Rita Svandrlik, Monika Szczepaniak, Alexandra Tacke, Gérard Thiériot, Sabine Treude, Juliane Vogel, Christian van der Steeg.