International audience This contribution discusses Elfriede Jelinek's essays with particular regard to the academic scholarship dedicated to this part of her work to date. It has often been noted that, despite growing interest in essay translations, not much has yet been generated in terms of critical discussion and analysis of the essays themselves. This article revises this point of view by showing how translations and anthologies of the texts already contribute towards a definition of the genre. The article endeavours to provide an overview of research practices today and in the 1990s, in order to examine the current definition of the essay genre. It emphasizes the transitory nature of Jelinek's five hundred essays, which require specific attention to their materiality, their relationship with time and to similar genres.