Austria in Books

Discover the Best Books set in Vienna.

Explore Books set in Austria Beyond Vienna.

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Best Books Set in Austria

Find the best books set in Austria, from award-winning Austrian novels to internationally acclaimed masterpieces.

Complete List of Books Set in Austria

Below is a complete list of the books set in Austria featured on this website.

• A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler
• Angel of Oblivion by Maja Haderlap
• Auto da Fé (The Blinding) by Elias Canetti
• Carl Haffner’s Love of the Draw by Thomas Glavinic
• Last Waltz in Vienna by George Clare
• Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
• Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard
• Setting Free the Bears by John Irving
• Tante Jolesch or The Decline of the West in Anecdotes by Friedrich Torberg
• The Battle by Patrick Rambaud
• The Emperor’s Tomb by Joseph Roth
• The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
• The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War by Alexander Waugh
• The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
• The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard
• The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
• The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
• The Road to the Open by Arthur Schnitzler
• The Third Man by Graham Greene
• The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
• The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
• The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig
• Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard

Austria and the Problem of Literary Nationality

For writers who lived and worked during the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, questions of literary nationality are often complex and contested. Authors such as Franz Kafka and Franz Werfel are frequently labelled Czech, while Joseph Roth is sometimes described as Ukrainian. One may also distinguish between writers who wrote in German (such as Kafka, Werfel and Roth) and those who wrote in other languages, such as Jaroslav Hašek, who wrote in Czech, or Bruno Schulz, who wrote in Polish.

Personally, I consider these debates somewhat theoretical and anachronistic. Many of these authors were citizens of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire and later found themselves citizens of newly created successor states. Any attempt to assign them a single national literary identity is therefore inherently difficult and, to some extent, artificial.

This website focuses primarily on the settings of novels, rather than on the nationality of their authors. As a result, writers such as Kafka and Hašek are discussed under the Czech Republic rather than Austria, even though the Austro-Hungarian culture play an important role in their literary context.

While this page concentrates on prose fiction, Austria has also given the world a great number of poets. Among them are Franz Grillparzer, Georg Trakl, Rainer Maria Rilke (who also wrote the novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, set in Paris), and Paul Celan.

Nineteenth-Century Austrian Literature

Austria’s prose tradition came into its own in the nineteenth century, with a number of writers who are now considered canonical.

Among the most important are Adalbert Stifter, author of Indian Summer and Witiko, and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, known for works such as Krambambuli, Two Countesses and Child of the Neighbourhood. The period also produced Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose Venus in Furs gave rise to the term ‘masochism’, and Bertha von Suttner, author of Lay Down Your Arms and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Early Twentieth-Century Austrian Writers

The turn of the century and the early decades of the twentieth century marked a golden age of Austrian literature. Key figures include: Arthur Schnitzler (author of The Road to the Open, Fräulein Else and Rhapsody: A Dream Novel); Hugo von Hofmannsthal (best known for his drama, opera libretti and poetry); Stefan Zweig (author of The World of Yesterday and The Royal Game); Robert Musil, author of The Man Without Qualities); Leo Perutz (author of From Nine to Nine); Joseph Roth (author of Radetzky March and The Emperor’s Tomb); Hermann Broch (author of The Sleepwalkers and The Death of Virgil); Vicki Baum (best known for Grand Hotel); Alexander Lernet-Holenia (author of Mars in Aries, I Was Jack Mortimer and The Count of Saint Germain); and Felix Salten (author of Bambi: A Life in the Woods).

After the Anschluss in 1938, many of these writers were persecuted or forced into exile, among them were Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth. Others chose to accommodate or actively collaborate with the Nazi regime, including Heimito von Doderer.

Post-Second World War Austrian Authors

Important post-war authors from Austria include Ingeborg Bachmann (author of Malina), Heimito von Doderer (author of The Strudlhof Steps and The Demons), Thomas Bernhard (author of Woodcutters and Old Masters), Friedrich Torberg (author of Tante Jolesch), Marlen Haushofer (author of The Wall), Elfriede Jelinek (laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of The Piano Teacher, Lust, and The Children of the Dead) and Peter Handke (also laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, Repetition, and Crossing the Sierra de Gredos). Another laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Elias Canetti, spent much of his early adult years in Vienna (where his novel Auto-da-Fé is set).

Among important contemporary Austrian authors are Robert Menasse (author of The Capital), Maja Haderlap (author of Angel of Oblivion), Robert Schneider (author of Brother of Sleep), Thomas Glavinic (author of Carl Haffner’s Love of the Draw), and Robert Seethaler (author of A Whole Life and The Tobacconist).