In the wake of Austrian Elfriede Jelinek‘s winning of the Nobel Prize, Ian Traynor, in this Guardian story, notes that she is also at the center of a controversy in her country, where she has refused to participate in a government–sponsored project called the Austrokoffer. According to Traynor, the project is an 18–volume  “anthology to be published next year as a showcase of postwar Austrian writing . . . delivered to mark a triple anniversary — 10 years of Austria in the EU, 50 years of Austrian independence, and 60 years since the defeat of Nazi Austria.” But Jelinek, who has refused to allow her plays to be performed ever since the ascendancy of the right–wing Haider party, is one of several “refusniks.” Then there’s the man “viewed by many as Austria’s greatest postwar writer,” the late Thomas Bernhard—the subject, like Jelinek, of hate attacks from the right. However, just before his death in 1988, reports Traynor, “in a magnificent act of spite, Bernhard amended his will to ban all publication and performance of his works in Austria.” Now, that ban is being ignored for this project, and many are up in arms about it.