In an interview from 1988, Elfriede Jelinek stated: “The project I am currently working on is an attempt to find an aesthetic method to express the obscene, to express pornography” (Interview with Elfriede Jelinek by Gabriele Presber,
Die Kunst ist weiblich, Munich: Droemer Knaur, 1988, p. 108). These words became the descriptor for her next novel, with critics and readers alike anxiously awaiting publication of a work hyped in the press as a pornographic novel told from a woman’s perspective. Upon publication of the novel titled
Lust[
Lust] in 1989, these expectations vaulted the text to the top of the German best-seller list, where it remained for weeks. However, readers expecting a novel about women’s sexual fantasies were sorely disappointed, and most copies of the novel…
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Citation: DeMeritt, Linda C.. "Lust". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 October 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19700, accessed 21 November 2024.]