The Fifth Year

The Fifth Year follows a five-year-old girl, Marili, through each season of a single year on her grandparents' farm in the mountains of Austria. Her grand-mother is a quiet, melancholic woman; her grandfather, with his calm, cheerful disposition, radiates warmth. Marili's parents have presumably died in the war, and she is left to discover--with curiosity, wonder, and fear--the beauty and darkness of a quiet pastoral life. Sinister elements lurk beneath the surface of The Fifth Year, in Marili's dreams and fantasies, and this deceptively simple tale of childhood, told in effervescent and evocative prose, bubbles to life in Marlen Haushofer's inimitably alarming style.

Author: Marlen Haushofer
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 05/26/2026
Pages: 80
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.20lbs
Size: 7.10h x 4.40w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9780811239981


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/30/2026
Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2026
Booklist 04/28/2026

About the Author
Whiteside, Shaun: - Shaun Whiteside is a translator of French, Dutch, German, and Italian literature.Haushofer, Marlen: - Marlen Haushofer (1920-1970) was an Austrian author of short stories, novels, radio plays, and children's books. Her work has had a strong influence on many German-language writers, such as the Nobel Prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek, who dedicated one of her plays to her. The relaunch of her classic The Wall--acclaimed "strange and wondrous" by James Wood in The New Yorker--was a major literary sensation.