ABSTRACT
After a period as an apprentice and a programmer Wolfgruber studied from 1968 to 1974 in Vienna, where he lives as a professional writer. He belongs to a generation of Austrian social realists, Michael Scharang, Franz Innerhofer, Josef Winkler, who have focused on the struggles of young men at the mercy of varying pressures from family, employment and the affluent society in general on the border between the working and the lower middle classes (cf. also the West Germans Gerd Fuchs and Wilhelm Genazino). In the novels Auf freiem Fuβ (1975), Herrenjahre (1976), Niemandsland (1978), Verlauf eines Sommers (1981) and Die Nähe der Sonne (1985) these pressures lead respectively to crime and imprisonment, over-extension of resources and bereavement, marriage breakup, professional disaster and madness.
