The Loft

A woman is unnerved when a sinister package arrives in the post—containing her old diary entries. Strange and gripping, this is the work of Marlen Haushofer, mistress of sustained dread and author of the cult classic, The Wall.

An Austrian housewife sits in her loft intent on her drawings of birds and insects. Then one day a disturbing package arrives in the post...

The loft is her retreat, a place she can draw undisturbed, hidden away even from her own family. But the arrival of the parcel threatens her fragile equilibrium. It contains extracts from the narrator's diary, written twenty years before. They date back to a time when she was sent away by her husband to a remote cottage in a bid to 'cure' her from unexplained sudden deafness.

More mysterious packages arrive. Who is sending them? And what did happen all those years ago in the forest?

'A thrilling novel... What gives this book its tremendous power? First the voice is charming, with a skittish beauty throughout... But there is also disarming honesty, and a lack of vanity, which appeals as only truth can' John Self, Guardian

Translated by Amanda Prantera