Christine Lavant

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Christine Lavant (born Christine Thonhauser), mar.

Christine Habernig (born 4 July 1915 – 7 June 1973) was an Austrian poet and novelist.

Life

Lavant was born in the hamlet of Großedling (today part of Wolfsberg) in the Lavant Valley, Carinthia, the ninth child of a poor miner's family. Later, she adopted the valley's name as her pseudonym.

The newborn had scrofula of the breast, neck, and face and was practically blind. The child at regular intervals contracted pneumonia and physicians treated her as unprofitable; still, she was enrolled in primary school (Volksschule) in 1921. The chief physician praised Lavant's literary work and gave her a copy of Rainer Maria Rilke's work at a hospitalization in Klagenfurt, which she carried on her 60 kilometres (37 miles) walk home. After being exposed to a volatile X-ray therapy in 1927, her health deteriorated and she was only able to complete primary school with continual disruptions two years later. As the pathway was too long for the feeble child, she was forced to postpone the subsequent attendance at the lower secondary school (Hauptschule).

Lavant was compelled to stay at her parents' house and spend herself with painting, writing, reading, and needlework. A protracted middle ear infection resulted in a single-sided hearing loss. She suffered with a major depression in the early 1930s, but she also concentrated on painting and writing, and even sold a first book to a Graz publishing house. The manuscript was finally rejected in 1932, whereafter Lavant completely destroyed her writing and attended the Klagenfurt sanatorium in 1935. Since her parents died in a snap of 1937 and 1938, her financial situation worsened. She married Josef Habernig, a 35-year-old woman, who was supported by her knitting and subsidized by her siblings.

Lavant revived lyric poetry after World War II, which attracted some attention from the Austrian literary scene. A Stuttgart publisher who recommended her that she go to prose brought a first volume out, but she followed her with the novella Das Kind (The Child) in the same year. She became well-known after attending a 1950 reading in Sankt Veit. Lavant migrated to Wolfsberg, Michigan, where she lived in reclusion for the remainder of her life. When her husband died as a result of a stroke in 1964, she had a health breakdown and was forced to seek hospitalization. Lavant died in Wolfsberg, aged 57.

Her poems have been described as "most mystically spiritual" and "archaic." Rilke and Christianity are seen as influences on her work.

Source

Awards

• 1954 Georg Trakl Prize
• 1964 Anton Wildgans Prize
• 1964 Georg Trakl Prize
• 1970 Grand Austrian State Prize for literature