The Piano Teacher

The Piano Teacher (German: Die Klavierspielerin) is a novel by Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, first published in 1983 by Rowohlt Verlag. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel, it was the first of Jelinek's novels to be translated into English.The novel follows protagonist Erika Kohut [ˈeːʀika ˈkoːhʊt], a sexually and emotionally repressed piano teacher, as she enters into a sadomasochistic relationship with her student, Walter Klemmer [ˈvaltɐ ˈklɛmɐ], the results of which are disastrous. Like much of Jelinek's work, the chronology of the events in the book is interwoven with images of the past and the internal thoughts of characters.While the English work was titled The Piano Teacher, the title in German means the piano player; it is also clear that the player is female because of the noun's feminine ending. In 2001, the novel was adapted into the film The Piano Teacher, directed by Michael Haneke.