Thomas Bernhard was born in 1931 in Heerlen, Netherlands as an illegitimate child to Herta Fabjan (1904—1950) and the carpenter Alois Zuckerstätter (1905—1940).

Bernhard spent much of his early childhood with his maternal grandparents in Vienna and Seekirchen, near Salzburg. His mother's subsequent marriage in 1936 occasioned a move to Traunstein, Bavaria.

Bernhard's grandfather, the author Johannes Freumbichler , pushed for an artistic education for the boy, including musical instruction. Bernhard went to elementary school in Seekirchen and later attended various schools in Salzburg including the Johanneum which he left in 1947 to start an apprenticeship with a grocer.

Bernhard's Lebensmensch (companion for life), whom he cared for alone in her dying days, was Hedwig Stavianicek (1894—1984), a woman more than thirty-seven years his senior, whom he met in 1950, the year of his mother's death and one year after the death of his beloved grandfather. She was the major support in his life and greatly furthered his literary career. Bernhard had sexual relationships with men, the extent or nature of his relationships with women is obscure. Thomas Bernhard's public persona was asexual.Suffering throughout his youth from an intractable lung disease, (tuberculosis), Bernhard spent the years 1949 to 1951 at the sanatorium Grafenhof, in Sankt Veit im Pongau. He trained as an actor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg (1955—1957) and was always profoundly interested in music: his lung condition, however, made a career as a singer impossible. After that he began work briefly as a journalist, then as a full-time writer.

Bernhard died in 1989 in Gmunden, Upper Austria. His attractive house in Ohlsdorf-Obernathal 2 where he had moved in 1965 is now a museum and centre for the study and performance of Bernhard's work. In his will, which aroused great controversy on publication, Bernhard prohibited any new stagings of his plays and publication of his unpublished work in Austria. His death was announced only after his funeral.

Often criticized in Austria as a Nestbeschmutzer (one who dirties his own nest) for his critical views, Bernhard was highly acclaimed abroad.

His work is most influenced by the feeling of being abandoned (in his childhood and youth) and by his incurable illness, which caused him to see death as the ultimate essence of existence. His work typically features loners' monologues explaining, to a rather silent listener, his views on the state of the world, often with reference to a concrete situation. This is true for his plays as well as for his prose, where the monologues are then reported second hand by the listener.

His main protagonists, often scholars or, as he calls them, Geistesmenschen, denounce everything that matters to the Austrian in tirades against the "stupid populace" that are full of contumely. He also attacks the state (often called "Catholic-National-Socialist"), generally respected institutions such as Vienna's Burgtheater, and much-loved artists. His work also continually deals with the isolation and self-destruction of people striving for an unreachable perfection, since this same perfection would mean stagnancy and therefore death. Anti-Catholic rhetoric is not uncommon.

"Es ist alles lächerlich, wenn man an den Tod denkt" (Everything is ridiculous, when one thinks of Death) was his comment when he received a minor Austrian national award in 1968, which resulted in one of the many public scandals he caused over the years and which became part of his fame. His novel Holzfällen (1984), for instance, could not be published for years due to a defamation claim by a former friend. Many of his plays...above all Heldenplatz (1988)...were met with criticism from many Austrians, who claimed they sullied Austria's reputation. One of the more controversial lines called Austria "a brutal and stupid nation a mindless, cultureless sewer which spreads its penetrating stench all over Europe." Heldenplatz, as well as the other plays Bernhard wrote in these years, were staged at Vienna's famous Burgtheater by the controversial director Claus Peymann.

Even in death Bernhard caused disturbance by his, as he supposedly called it, posthumous literary emigration, by disallowing all publication and stagings of his work within Austria's borders. The International Thomas Bernhard Foundation, established by his executor and half-brother Dr. Peter Fabjan, has subsequently made exceptions, although the German firm of Suhrkamp remains his principal publisher.

The correspondence between Bernhard and his publisher Siegfried Unseld from 1961 to 1989 — about 500 letters — has been published in December 2009 at Suhrkamp Verlag, Germany.

Novels

• Gargoyles (1970): Originally published as Verstörung (1967), translated by Richard Winston and Clara Winston.
• The Lime Works (1973): Originally published as Das Kalkwerk (1970), translated by Sophie Wilkins.
• Correction (1979): Originally published as Korrektur (1975), translated by Sophie Wilkins.
• Concrete (1984): Originally published as Beton (1982), translated by David McLintock.
• An Irritation (1985, novel): Originally published as Holzfällen: Eine Erregung (1984), translated by Ewald Osers. Also translated as Woodcutters, by David McLintock, in 1988.
• Wittgenstein's Nephew (1988): Originally published as Wittgensteins Neffe (1982), translated by David McLintock.
• A Comedy (1989): Originally published as Alte Meister. Komödie (1985), translated by Ewald Osers.
• The Cheap-Eaters (1990): Originally published as Der Billigesser (1980), translated by Ewald Osers.
• The Loser (1991): Originally published as Der Untergeher (1983), translated by Jack Dawson.
• On The Mountain (1991): Originally published as In Der Höhe (written 1959, published 1989), translated by Russell Stockman.
• Yes (1991): Originally published as Ja (1978), translated by Ewald Osers.
• Extinction (1995): Originally published as Auslöschung (1986), translated by David McLintock.
• Three Novellas (2003): Collects Amras (1964), Playing Watten (Watten, 1964) and Walking (Gehen, 1971). Translated by Peter Jansen and Kenneth J. Northcott.
• Frost (2006): Originally published in 1963, translated by Michael Hofmann.

Plays

• The President and Eve of Retirement (1982): Originally published as Der Präsident (1975) and Vor dem Ruhestand. Eine Komödie von deutscher Seele (1979), translated by Gitta Honegger.
• Histrionics: Three Plays (1990): Collects A Party for Boris (Ein Fest für Boris, 1968), Ritter, Dene, Voss (1984) and Histrionics (Der Theatermacher, 1984), translated by Peter Jansen and Kenneth Northcott.
• Heldenplatz (1988)
• Over All the Mountain Tops (2004): Originally published as Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh (1981), translated by Michael Mitchell.

Miscellaneous

• Gathering Evidence (1985, memoir): Collects Die Ursache (1975), Der Keller (1976), Der Atem (1978), Die Kälte (1981) and Ein Kind (1982), translated by David McLintock.
• The Voice Imitator (1997, stories): Originally published as Der Stimmenimitator (1978), translated by Kenneth J. Northcott.[1]
• In Hora Mortis / Under the Iron of the Moon (2006, poetry): Collects In Hora Mortis (1958) and Unter dem Eisen des Mondes (1958), translated by James Reidel.

• Gitta Honegger, Thomas Bernhard: The Making of an Austrian, Yale University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-300-08999-6
• JJ Long, The Novels of Thomas Bernhard: Form and its Function, Camden House Inc.,U.S., 2001, ISBN 1-57113-224-4
• Ruth Franklin, "The Art of Extinction," The New Yorker, December 25, 2006 and Jan 1, 2007
• John Taylor, "The Poetry of Thomas Bernhard," Into the Heart of European Poetry, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2008, pp. 227—229.

Reviews

• Review of Concrete.