Faschinger's next novel Lustspiel
(1989) further develops the idea that women have a right to equality in loverelationships. The satire here is darker, however, as the heroine's memories of a broken marriage and of a painful
relationship with a married man color her narrative. Again the heroine escapes into literature as she creates a fantasy of
herself as a marathon runner who leaves behind her all who would restrict her freedom. And again the work is full of
references to fairy tales, Hollywood films, song texts and children's verses as the narrator creates for herself a world in
which women are free to pursue their own sexual desires.
Faschinger's next two collections of short stories adopt a more somber note, as, in the first, Frau mit drei Flugzeugen
(1993), average people are presented whose very banality masks their frustrated longings, and in the second, Sprünge
(1994), the protagonists of each of the three stories seek to escape their existential loneliness through suicide.
Faschinger's most recent novel, Magdalena Sünderin(1995), represents a return to the Baroque fantasies of her earlier
novels as a spirited heroine kidnaps a priest on Whit Sunday in order to confess to him that she has murdered seven men
when none proved able to fulfill her longing for a lasting and satisfying relationship. A good deal of humor is provided by
the kidnapped priest, who, over the course of the confession, succumbs to the charms of his kidnapper and is converted to
her point of view. In this novel the heroine quite literally escapes from her would-be captors by riding off into the
landscape on her motorcycle.
Faschinger typically incorporates into her works a rigorous critique of Austrian society and the institution of the Church, as
viewed from a woman's perspective. At the same time she portrays a variety of settings and nationalities in her works,
suggesting that there is no country where a woman can find complete fulfillment of her dreams for an equal partnership and
lasting sexual pleasure with a man. She is a master at creating unique voices for her disparate protagonists, and for
working into her texts an encyclopedic range of allusions to characters and situations from high and low culture, from the
Bible to Batman, from Dante to Dracula. Her translations of English-speaking authors include, among others, Gertrude
Stein, Paul Bowles, Richard Stern, and Janet Frame and they, too, have won critical recognition and acclaim. She is the
recipient of at least eight literary prizes. At present she is working on a new satirical novel to which she has given the
tentative title Wiener Stimmen.