Selected Short Writings: Karl Kraus, Hermann Broch, Elias Canetti, Robert Walser (German Library)

The literature of the Wiener Moderne exhibits biting social satire and other related aspects, first emanating from Karl Kraus (1874-1936), a prolific writer, difficult to classify, who reminds people of Jonathan Swift. Novelists and essayists Hermann Broch (1886-1951) and Elias Canetti (1905-94), who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981, were likewise marginalized, to a large extent as Jews. Robert Walser (1878-1956) is Swiss, and to a large extent like the other three authors in this collection, had no less a desire to upset the social applecart. Among the works included are substantive selection from Krauss's The Last Days of Mankind and Aphorisms, Bloch's "The Anarchist," selections from Canetti's Crowds and Power and Auto-da-Fe, and Walser's Jakob von Gunten.