Monika Helfer

Monika Helfer was born on 18 October 1947 in Au in the Bregenzerwald region of Vorarlberg, Austria. Her father, Josef Helfer, had been wounded as a soldier on the Russian front and wore an artificial leg; he met her mother Margarete, a nurse, in the military hospital where he was treated. After their marriage the family moved to the Tschengla, an alpine plateau in Vorarlberg, where Josef managed a convalescent home for disabled war veterans and looked after its library. That library was her first way into literature.

In the late 1950s the owners closed the home, and the family lost its livelihood. Her mother died of cancer while Monika was still a child, and her father suffered a breakdown. Monika and her three siblings, her sisters Gretel and Renate and her brother Richard, were separated and sent to live with relatives on their mother's side. She later described her parents' marriage as a love between two wounded people, and these early losses ran through her writing for the rest of her life.

Helfer published her first book, Eigentlich bin ich im Schnee geboren, in 1977 under the name Monika Helfer-Friedrich, the surname of her first marriage. Novels including Die wilden Kinder (1984), Mulo (1986), Ich lieb Dich überhaupt nicht mehr (1989), Oskar und Lilli (1994), Wenn der Bräutigam kommt (1998) and Mein Mörder (1999) followed, along with plays such as Bestien im Frühling, staged at the Schauspielhaus Wien in 1999, and a number of radio plays. Her children's books, among them the Rosie series, won the Austrian Children's and Youth Book Prize in 2003 and 2011. Oskar und Lilli was filmed by Arash T. Riahi in 2018 as Ein bisschen bleiben wir noch.

Her books often explored difficult family relationships from a child's point of view. In the laudation for her Austrian Decoration for Science and Art, First Class, in 2016, her characters were praised for their courage, will to survive and a child's healthy defiance of social labels. Schau mich an, wenn ich mit dir rede! was nominated for the German Book Prize in 2017.

Her breakthrough to a wide readership came late with an autofictional family trilogy published by Hanser. Die Bagage (2020) told the story of her grandparents and her mother Grete; it was nominated for the Austrian Book Prize, won the readers' prize at the Bavarian Book Prize and became a bestseller. Vati (2021), centred on her father, was shortlisted for the German Book Prize, and Löwenherz (2022) dealt with the life and early death of her brother Richard. Die Jungfrau (2023) turned to her friendship with a school friend. Her later honours included the Solothurn Literature Prize and the Bodensee Literature Prize in 2020, the Schubart Literature Prize in 2021, the Johann Peter Hebel Prize in 2022, the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the political book in 2025 and the Carl Zuckmayer Medal in 2026. Her last books included a volume of poems, Bitte schick mir eine Droge, in 2025.

Helfer married for the first time at the age of 19. That marriage lasted eight years and produced her first two children, a daughter and a son, Lorenz Helfer, who became a visual artist and illustrated some of her books. In 1981 she married the writer Michael Köhlmeier, with whom she had two more children and with whom she wrote several books and plays. Their daughter Paula Köhlmeier died in a mountain accident in 2003, and Helfer dedicated her novel Bevor ich schlafen kann (2010) to her memory. Helfer and Köhlmeier lived in Hohenems in Vorarlberg and in Vienna.

Monika Helfer died on Sunday 2 August 2026 at the Landeskrankenhaus Feldkirch, the regional hospital in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, aged 78. Her death followed a fall she had suffered the day before and was described as sudden. Her publisher, Carl Hanser Verlag, announced the news that afternoon, and publisher Jo Lendle said her straight, clear and truthful writing had made the world more alive. ORF and other Austrian and German media reported her death the same day, describing her as one of the most significant voices in Austrian literature.

Helfer is remembered for writing about families as they really are: complicated, painful and contradictory, yet held together by love. Her family trilogy brought the rural Vorarlberg of the postwar years to a large readership and renewed interest in her earlier work, while her children's books and her partnership with Michael Köhlmeier made her a central figure in the literary life of western Austria.