He explored themes of death, isolation, obsession and illness in controversial literature that was pessimistic about the human condition and highly critical of post-war Austrian and European culture.

He developed a distinctive prose style often featuring multiple perspectives on characters and events, idiosyncratic vocabulary and punctuation, and long monologues by protagonists on the verge of insanity.

While recovering in a sanatorium he began writing poetry and stories and met Hedwig Stavianicek, a wealthy heiress who supported his literary ambitions and whom he later described as the most important person in his life.

Bernhard was controversial in Austria for his public polemics against what he saw as his homeland's post-war cultural pretensions, antisemitism, provincialism and denial of its Nazi past.

In the autumn of 1931, Herta took Thomas to Vienna to live with her parents: Anna Bernhard and her de facto husband, the novelist Johannes Freumbichler.

[10] In 1950, while staying at the Grafenhof sanatorium in Sankt Veit im Pongau, Bernhard met Hedwig Stavianicek (1894–1984), a wealthy heiress who was more than thirty-seven years his senior.

The following year, the ceremony for the Anton Wildgans Prize was cancelled when the organisers learned that Bernhard intended to deliver a revised version of the same speech.

[18] In 1970, Bernhard's novel The Lime Works was published and his first professionally produced play, A Party for Boris, premiered at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg.

[21] His novel Correction (1975) is widely considered his masterpiece[22][23] and his five volumes of memoirs (1975-82) (collected in English translation as Gathering Evidence) achieved critical acclaim.

Eight new full-length plays were premiered and he wrote a series of novels comprising long monologues by ageing and ill protagonists who Honegger compares to Bernhard in their "race against death.

[33] His final play Heldenplatz (1988), commissioned by Vienna's Burgtheater for the celebrations of its centenary, sparked another controversy when the press revealed that it would include attacks on Austria for antisemitism and denial of its Nazi past.

Numerous politicians and public figures called for a ban on the production, Bernhard received death threats, and the Burgtheater was guarded by 200 police officers on the opening night of the play in November 1988.

After my death, not a word shall be published from my papers, wherever such may exist, including letters and scraps of paper.Most of Bernhard's work has autobiographical elements, although fact and fiction are freely mixed.

[39][40] Critic Mark Anderson states, "death in his writing comes as a random, unjustifiable, but unavoidable cut in existence that cancels all previous hope and striving".

[41] Literary critic Stephen Dowden states that in Berhard's fiction there is no redemption for man in religion, politics, art or history.

[42] The typical Bernhard protagonist is a middle-aged male who, according to Dowden, is "self-absorbed, histrionically pessimistic, and motivated by a deep loathing of culture and self," but who is nevertheless "strangely charismatic because of the powerful musical language with which he expresses his inner life."

"[43] Bernhard depicts a postwar Austria steeped in cultural pretensions, antisemitism, denial of its Nazi past and devotion to a morally bankrupt Catholicism.

Dowden argues that Bernhard's works also attest to a will to rebel against conformity and to develop an independent self-identity: "His entire oeuvre amounts to one unswerving experiment in thinking against the grain, in forcing the imagination to explore the parts of life it resists the most.

"[50] Bernhard developed a distinctive prose style which is often described as musical, emphasising the rhythms of Austrian German, repetition of key phrases, and variations on recognisable themes.

"[52] Honegger distinguishes between Bernhard's early prose which was characterised by multiple perspectives and stylistic experimentation and the late works beginning with Yes (1978) which she calls "concerts for a solo mind.

[61][62][63] Critics generally consider his major prose works to be Correction (1975),[64][65] Extinction (1986)[66] and his five volumes of memoirs (1975-82) (collected in English translation as Gathering Evidence.

)[67] Bernhard wrote 18 full-length plays, many of which premiered at leading German-language venues including the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, the Salzburg Festival and the Vienna Burgtheater.

[68] His plays polarised audiences and critics and often caused media and political controversy for their pessimism and polemics against Austrian and European culture and institutions.

"[70] Honegger states that Bernhard's prose style has influenced the German language: "his performative grammar and incendiary vocabulary have been appropriated by politicians of all persuasions, exploited by the media, and imitated by lesser writers.

"[71] Bernhard has influenced younger Austrian writers including Elfriede Jelinek, Lilian Faschinger, Robert Menasse and Josef Haslinger.