Woodcutters

About “Woodcutters”

Woodcutters is a novel by Thomas Bernhard, published in German in 1984. It is a roman à clef focused on the theatre and is the second book in a trilogy that includes The Loser (1983) and Old Masters (1985), which deal with music and painting. The book caused controversy in Austria, where it became a bestseller. A defamation lawsuit by composer Gerhard Lampersberg, who was a former friend of Bernhard and the model for the character Auersberger, led to a court order to destroy remaining copies. Lampersberg later dropped the lawsuit. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)