Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

Killing Stella

byMarlen Haushofer, Shaun Whiteside (Translator)

Format:

Paperback

Pre-order:

AmazonOpens in a new tabBlackwellsOpens in a new tabBookshop.orgOpens in a new tabFoylesOpens in a new tabHiveOpens in a new tabWaterstonesOpens in a new tabWHSmithOpens in a new tab

Claustrophobic and shattering, this is the story of one ordinary woman unable to save a teenager in her care. It is the story of Stella...

Stella is a friend's nineteen-year-old daughter who has come to live with Anna and her family. Unloved and neglected, Stella's presence disturbs the already tense and tumultuous household. She lodges uncomfortably in their lives, whilst Anna struggles to bring warmth and welcome to the home. Her son continues to be gloomy and her daughter oblivious. Meanwhile Richard, Anna's adulterous husband, pretends not to notice Stella at all…

Marlen Haushofer, author of The Wall, is the undisputed mistress of sustained dread and this gripping short novel deserves to be rediscovered.

TRANSLATED BY SHAUN WHITESIDE

'This potent 1958 novella from Austrian writer Haushofer takes the form of a mother’s agitated confession... This one hits hard' Publisher's Weekly

'Chillingly unillusioned... A fable about the habitual moral inertia of educated people' London Review of Books

‘Haushofer is a rather terrifying writer… Killing Stella limns a world of guilty secrets and repressions’ New Yorker

About Marlen Haushofer

Marie Helene Haushofer was born in Frauenstein, Austria in 1920. Following the Second World War, she worked in her husband's dentistry practice. She began publishing short stories in magazines from 1946. She enjoyed success with her novella The Fifth Year, which was published in 1952 but her most enduring work was The Wall, first published in 1963 and now considered a classic of dystopian fiction. She died in 1970.
Details
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • ISBN: 9781529953527
  • Length: 96 pages
  • Price: £9.99