The Austrian author Ilse Aichinger achieved acclaim as a pioneer of post-World War II literature and one of the first writers to address the Nazi era and the Holocaust. Her story “Das vierte Tor” [“The Fourth Gate”] appeared in a Viennese newspaper, the “Kurier”, on 1 September 1945. Cited as the first Austrian publication about the Nazi concentration camps, it became, in revised form, a chapter of Aichinger’s famous novel
Die grösste Hoffnung(1948), translated as
Herod’s Childrenin 1963. The novel laid out key issues for future Holocaust writers by incorporating fiction and autobiography, modern literary experimentation, protest, touches of religion, and historical documentation. Aichinger never wrote a second novel, but continued to produce significant stories, as…
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Citation: Saur, Pamela S.. "Ilse Aichinger". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 January 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12181, accessed 23 November 2024.]
