Greed (Paperback)

Kurt Janisch is an ambitious, but frustrated, country policeman. Things are not going right in his life - at least not fast enough. But a country policeman gets talking to a lot of people in the line of duty - particularly women. Lonely, middle-aged women, women with a bit of property perhaps ... Matters go from bad to worse: for Kurt Janisch, for the women who fall for him. Someone sees too much, knows too much. Soon there's a body in a lake and a murderer to be caught.

Set amid the mountains and small towns of southern Austria, Greed is a powerful reflection on ageing. As always, Jelinek gives the reader a lot to think about: the ecological costs of affluence, the inescapable burden and inadequacy of everyday words, the exploitative nature of relations between men and women, the impossibility of life without relationships. In Greed Jelinek expresses her love/hate relationship with Austria: it is a mesmerising portrait of evil.

About the Author
Elfriede Jelinek was born in Austria in 1946 and grew up in Vienna where she attended the renowned Music Conservatory. The leading Auatrian writer of her generation, she has been awarded the Heinrich Boll Prize for her contribution to German Literature, the Georg Buchner Prize, and in 2004 she was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature. The film by Michael Haneke of The Piano Teacher won the three main prizes at Cannes in 2001.