Friederike Mayröcker (20 December 1924 – 4 June 2021) was an Austrian writer of poetry and prose, radio plays, children's books and dramatic texts.

[2] Her work, inspired by art, music, literature and everyday life, appeared as "novel and also dense text formations, often described as 'magical'.

"[3] According to The New York Times, her work was "formally inventive, much of it exploiting the imaginative potential of language to capture the minutiae of daily life, the natural world, love and grief.

[6] In World War II, she was drafted as an air force aide, working as a secretary.

She was eventually introduced to the Wiener Gruppe, a group of mostly surrealist and expressionist Austrian authors such as Ingeborg Bachmann.

[3] It remained the only book for ten years, but then the poem collection Death by Muses, meant her breakthrough and recognition as "a leading lyrical voice of her generation".

[9] Her prose is often described as autofictional, since Mayröcker uses quotes of private conversations and excerpts from letters and diaries in her work.

[3] Mayröcker earned numerous German-language literary prizes and was frequently mentioned as a potential Nobel laureate.

Step to the window),[4] was short-listed for the prize of the Leipzig Book Fair 2021,[2][12] with the jury saying that she "fuses poetry and prose into 'proems' full of infatuations, futilities, fantasies, daydreams".