Elias Canetti was an Austrian-British novelist, playwright, and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981. He is best known for his novel Auto-da-Fe, which was published in 1935. Canetti was born in Ruse, Bulgaria, and moved to Vienna in 1922. He wrote in German and later in English. His works explore the dynamics of power and authority, and often feature a strong sense of irony. Canetti's works have been translated into more than 40 languages.