They announced the false death of the Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, due to another lie by the Italian Tommasso Debenedetti
Numerous German-language media outlets reported on Tuesday the death of Nobel Prize winner for Literature Elfriede Jelinek , a story that turned out to be a hoax spread by controversial Italian journalist Tommasso Debenedetti .
Und schon wieder narrt Tommasso Debenedetti die etablierten Medien erfolgreich. https://t.co/DgxEkh0tuE pic.twitter.com/uSynjp7Fzc
— Ronnie Grob (@ronniegrob) June 17, 2025
On the social network X, messages in English and German appeared around 2:00 p.m. Vienna time (12:00 GMT) on the RowohltAT account, supposedly the Austrian branch of Jelinek's publishing house , announcing her death at the age of 78, along with a large photo of the Austrian writer.
Numerous media outlets, including well-known ones such as the German weekly Focus and the Austrian dailies Der Standard and Kronenzeitung, reported for minutes on Jelinek's death in their online editions, without realizing that RowohltAT was a fake account with fewer than 500 followers on X.
Within minutes of the alleged news breaking, a spokeswoman for the German publishing house Rowholt denied the death of Jelinek , one of Austria's best-known writers, author of novels such as The Pianist and plays such as Ulrike Maria Stuart and Bambiland , among others.
Additionally, the creator of RowohltAT himself posted a message in English saying , "Breaking news: Elfriede Jelinek is alive and well . The fake news about her death originated from this account; a hoax created by me, Italian journalist Tommasso Debenedetti."
Austrian Nobel Prize winner in literature, novelist and playwright Elfriede Jelinek, appears at her home in Vienna during an interview with the AP on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004, following the announcement of her award. (AP Photo_Rudi Blaha)
In November 2024, Debenedetti himself created a fake account on X of the publishing house Tusquets Editores to announce the alleged death of the Basque writer Fernando Aramburu , a lie that was reproduced by numerous Spanish media.
Debenedetti began fabricating interviews with well-known figures in the 2000s, and with the advent of social media, he has gained fame by making the fake deaths of numerous personalities go viral .
Clarin
