The Wall

De: Marlen Haushofer, Shaun Whiteside - translator, Claire-Louise Bennett - introduction

Brought to you by Penguin.

The strange and suspenseful dystopian classic about an ordinary woman whose weekend away in the Austrian mountains takes an inexplicable and sinister turn - and becomes a fight for survival.

**FOR FANS OF I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN**

A woman takes a holiday in the Austrian mountains, spending a few days with her cousin and his wife in their hunting lodge. When the couple fails to return from a walk, the woman sets off to look for them. But her journey reaches a sinister and inexplicable dead end. She discovers only a transparent wall behind which there seems to be no life. Trapped alone behind the mysterious wall she begins the arduous work of survival.

This is at once a simple account of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one's name, and simultaneously a disturbing dissection of the place of human beings in the natural world.

'One of the most beautiful and most harrowing books I’ve ever read, as well as one of the best' Susan Choi

'Every joint and sinew of the story is restless with a sense of threat' London Review of Books

'Brilliant in its sustainment of dread, in its peeling away of old layers of reality to expose a raw way of seeing and feeling.' Nicole Krauss

TRANSLATED BY SHAUN WHITESIDE

VINTAGE EARTH is a collection of novels to transform our relationship with the natural world. Each one is a work of creative activism, a blast of fresh air, a seed from which change can grow. The books in this series reconnect us to the planet we inhabit - and must protect. Discover great writing on the most urgent story of our times.

© Marlen Haushofer 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026