Killing Stella

By: Marlen Haushofer

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Paperback | 28 April 2026

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Paperback

Dimensions(cm)
19.6 x 12.9 x 0.6

Paperback

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A short, claustrophobic, shattering novel about a woman unable to act to save a teenager in her care, by the mistress of sustained dread, Marlen Haushofer.

Claustrophobic and shattering, this is the story of one ordinary woman unable to save a teenager in her care. It is the story of Stella...

Stella is a friend's nineteen-year-old daughter who has come to live with Anna and her family. Unloved and neglected, Stella's presence disturbs the already tense and tumultuous household. She lodges uncomfortably in their lives, whilst Anna struggles to bring warmth and welcome to the home. Her son continues to be gloomy and her daughter oblivious. Meanwhile Richard, Anna's adulterous husband, pretends not to notice Stella at all…

Marlen Haushofer, author of The Wall, is the undisputed mistress of sustained dread and this gripping short novel deserves to be rediscovered.

TRANSLATED BY SHAUN WHITESIDE

'This potent 1958 novella from Austrian writer Haushofer takes the form of a mother’s agitated confession... This one hits hard' Publisher's Weekly

'Chillingly unillusioned... A fable about the habitual moral inertia of educated people' London Review of Books

‘Haushofer is a rather terrifying writer… Killing Stella limns a world of guilty secrets and repressions’ New Yorker

Industry Reviews

A book that gets more, not less, mysterious as it goes. I am glad that such novels exist; they are the literary equivalent of a sudden plunge into icy waters. They shock, they clarify

New York Times

Killing Stella has much in common with the claustrophobic-yet-idyllic milieu of the HBO White Lotus series or Patricia Smith's Ripley novels

npr.org

A slim domestic horror story that serves as a perfect entry to Haushofer’s work

Vulture

Haushofer brilliantly transforms an inevitable fatal ending into an electrifying beginning... Stella remains timelessly potent, its haunting horror more relevant than ever

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