Elfriede Jelinek: It began in kindergarten. I went to a Catholic elementary school, and I quickly found out that the children of parents who were rich and donated a lot were much more respected. That’s when I understood capitalism. My parents couldn’t donate a lot, so I wasn’t as respected as the rich kids in my school. There also were the children of Austriofascists and those of left-wing sympathizers; we had them all. That’s when I learned all about class society right from the start. [...] But what’s really interesting is that in Austria, where there were no student wars like in America or in Germany, it always was the artists who stepped in, most importantly the Vienna Actionists; in literature, it was the Vienna Group. [...] So in Austria it was the artists who did what the critical intelligentsia did in other places. We don’t have a Habermas, an Adorno. We didn’t bring anyone back from exile; they didn’t make an effort here. Now of course they would like to have all the Nobel Prize-winning scientists, but now they can’t get them. So now they have to make do with me [...].