Born in 1931, the illegitimate child of an abandoned mother, Thomas
Bernhard was brought up by an eccentric grandmother and adored grandfather. He
ran away from home at 15 and at 18, was put in a hospital ward for the old and
terminally ill when he caught pneumonia. This volume tells his story.Written with a dark pain and drama that recalls the novels of Dickens,
Gathering Evidence is a powerful and compelling memoir of youth by one of the
twentieth century's most gifted writers. Born in 1931, the illegitimate child
of an abandoned mother, Thomas Bernhard was brought up by an eccentric
grandmother and an adored grandfather. Tormented as a young student in
rightwing, Catholic Austria, Bernhard ran away from home aged fifteen. At
eighteen, he contracted pneumonia. Placed in a hospital ward for the old and
terminally ill, he observed with unflinching acuity protracted suffering and
death. From the age of 21, everything he wrote was shaped by the urgency of a
dying man's testament - his witness, the quintessence of his life and knowledge
- and where this account of his life ends, his art begins.
