There is still one thing for me to cling to: namely, the hope that one day I will draw a bird that is not completely alone in the world. This will show clearly by the way it holds it head, or the way its little claws are placed, or simply by the colour of its feathers. This bird is asleep somewhere inside me, and all I have to do is wake it up. It is a task I must accomplish on my own.

A 1960s Austrian housewife is forced to re-examine 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 clean and the baking is done, she forces herself to read and burn the evidence of her troubled youth.

The Loft, published shortly before Haushofer’s death in 1970, explores the anatomy of a desiccated marriage, the power of solitude, and the failure of Austrian society in the aftermath of Nazism.

Like Haushofer’s cult feminist classic The Wall, The Loft is a disturbing and ultimately uplifting tale of alienation, survival, and of finding joy in the strangest of places.