The Hungarian-born author, who published her works in French, achieved success with Le Grand Cahier (The Notebook) in 1986.
She won numerous prestigious literary awards for her books which were translated into more than 30 languages, including English and her mother tongue Hungarian.
She stopped writing in 2005, shortly after the release of her autobiography.
Born in Hungary in 1935, Kristóf came to Switzerland in 1956 and was a factory worker before she turned to writing.
Her work often dealt with split identities and her literary style has been described as austere and minimalistic.
Speaking on Wednesday the head of the Federal Culture Office, Jean-Frédéric Jauslin, said Switzerland had lost one of its great authors who had not won the popularity she deserved despite the high literary quality of her work.
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The author and prolific painter collapsed during a public discussion about a play adapted from his work in Yverdon-les-Bains, canton Vaud. He died shortly afterwards. Chessex in 1973 became the first non-French citizen to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt for his novel, The Ogre, a largely autobiographical tale of a troubled father-son relationship. Chessex’s father…
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Peter von Matt, the president of the Max Frisch Foundation board, tells swissinfo.ch about what made Frisch tick, his criticism of his homeland and why the author couldn’t live without women. There has been a lot of hype over Frisch this year – also the 20th anniversary of his death – something of which the…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.