Bernhard tee

Thomas Bernhard (1931 – 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilization in general and Austrian culture in particular. Bernhard's body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II." He is widely considered to be one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era.

Often criticized in Austria as a Nestbeschmutzer (one who dirties his own nest) for his critical views, Bernhard was highly acclaimed abroad. His work typically features loners' monologues explaining, to a rather silent listener, their views on the state of the world, often with reference to a concrete situation and sometimes reported secondhand by the listener. Alongside his serious and pessimistic views, his works also offer a deeply mordant humour and even, occasionally, milder observations on the comedy of life.

Bernhard's main protagonists, often scholars or, as he calls them, Geistesmenschen (intellectuals), denounce everything about the world in tirades against a "stupid populace". His work also deals with the isolation and self-destruction of people (artists, especially) striving for an unreachable perfection, since this same perfection would mean stagnation and therefore death.

Even in death Bernhard caused disturbance by his posthumous literary emigration, as he supposedly called it, by which his will disallowed all publication and stagings of his work within Austria.

• 100% combed and ring-spun cotton (Heather colors contain polyester)
• Fabric weight: 4.2 oz/yd² (142 g/m²)
• Pre-shrunk fabric
• Side-seamed construction
• Shoulder-to-shoulder taping
• Blank product sourced from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras, or the US

Size guide