publishing houses in Vienna and Frankfurt, and worked with Inge Scholl to found an Institute of Creative Writing in Ulm, Germany. In 1951, Aichinger was invited to join the writers' group Gruppe 47, a group which aimed to spread democratic ideas in post-war Austria. She read her story "Spiegelgeschichte" aloud at a meeting of the group, and leading group members such as Hans Werner Richter were impressed with the unusual narrative construction. The following year, she won the group's prize for best text, becoming the first female recipient. In 1956, she joined the Academy of Arts, Berlin. She was also a guest lecturer at the German Institute at the University of Vienna, teaching on literature and psychoanalysis. Reviewing a 1957 volume of her short works in translation, The Bound Man and Other Stories, Anthony Boucher describes Aichinger as "a sort of concise Kafka," praising the title story, "" ("The Bound Man"), for its "narrative use of multi-valued symbolism", The similarity to Kafka's work has been frequently commented on, however other critics state that Aichinger's work goes beyond Kafka's in her emphasis on the emotional side of human suffering. After the death of her husband, the German poet Günter Eich, in 1972, Aichinger and others edited his works and published them as Collected Works of Gunter Eich. In 1996, at the age of 75, she was the host of a German radio series Studio LCB for the Literary Colloquium Berlin. Aichinger died on 11 November 2016, aged 95. Personal life Aichinger met the poet and radio play author Günter Eich through the Group 47 and they were married in 1953; they had a son (1954–1998), and in 1958 a daughter, Mirjam. Awards Group 47 Literature Prize (1952) Immermann-Preis (1955) (1957) Großer Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste (1961, 1991) Anton Wildgans Prize (1968) Nelly Sachs Prize (1971) Roswitha Prize (1975) Petrarca-Preis (1982) Europalia Literature Prize (1987) Grand Austrian State Prize (1995) Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1996) , co-recipient with W. G. Sebald and Markus Werner (2000) Works 1945: Das vierte Tor (The Fourth Gate), essay 1948: Die größere Hoffnung (The Greater Hope), novel, adapted to a stage play in 2015 1949: "Spiegelgeschichte", short story 1951: Rede unter dem Galgen (Speech under the Gallows), short stories 1953: Der Gefesselte (The Bound Man), short stories 1953: Knöpfe (Buttons), radio play, adapted to stage play in 1957 1954: Plätze und Strassen