It might not have the hype or media feeding frenzy of the Booker Prize, but the Novel Prize for Literature has a gravitas that other awards can never hope to match.

This year’s winner, just announced, is the Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek.

Jelinek is most famous for her semi-autobiographical 1983 novel Die Klavierspielerin, the basis for the controversial 2001 film The Piano Teacher.

She’s already won just about every major German-language literary prize since 1969, but is relatively unknown outside central Europe - despite the brilliance of dark, dazzling novels such as Lust.

According to the background provided by the Nobel site, Jelinek has translated others’ works (Thomas Pynchon, Georges Feydeau, Eugène Labiche, Christopher Marlowe) and has also written film scripts and an opera libretto.

Alongside her literary writing she has made a reputation as a dauntless polemicist with a website always poised to comment on burning issues.

There’s more about Jelinek’s fascinating life here. And yes, she does look a bit like Peta Mathias, doesn’t she?