The Loft. Marlen Haushofer

A 1960s Austrian housewife is forced to review her past when pages from old diaries begin to arrive mysteriously in the letter box at her family home. Each day after the windows are cleaned and the baking is done, she forces herself to read and burn the evidence of her troubled youth. Marlen Haushofer is most famous for The Wall, her only novel to have been translated into English before now. She won numerous awards in her life time, including the Grand Austrian State Prize for literature. Although nearly forgotten after her death in 1970, it has since become a feminist classic.