Friedrich Torberg
Encyclopedia
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n writer
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
.
Biography
He worked as a critic and journalist in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
until 1938, when his Jewish heritage compelled him to emigrate to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and, later, after being invited by the New York PEN-Club as one of "Ten outstanding German Anti-Nazi-Writers" (along with Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
, Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel
Franz Werfel was an Austrian-Bohemian novelist, playwright, and poet.- Biography :Born in Prague , Werfel was the first of three children of a wealthy manufacturer of gloves and leather goods. His mother, Albine Kussi, was the daughter of a mill owner...
, Alfred Döblin
Alfred Döblin
Alfred Döblin was a German expressionist novelist, best known for the novel Berlin Alexanderplatz .- 1878–1918:...
, Leonhard Frank
Leonhard Frank
Leonhard Frank was a German expressionist writer. He studied painting and graphic art in Munich, and gained acclaim with his first novel, The Robber Band...
, Alfred Polgar
Alfred Polgar
Alfred Polgar was an Austrian-born journalist, one of the renowned wits of the Vienna coffeehouses. He left Austria in 1938, and later worked in Hollywood.He was known as a drama critic, in Berlin 1925 to 1933, and an essayist...
, and others) to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he worked as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and then for Time magazine in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. In 1951 he returned to Vienna, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Torberg is known best for his satirical writings in fiction and nonfiction, as well as his translations into German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
of the stories of Ephraim Kishon
Ephraim Kishon
' was an Israeli author, dramatist, screenwriter, and film director. He is one of the most widely-read contemporary satirists in the world.- Early life and World War II :...
, which remain the standard German language version of Kishon's work.
Selected works
- Der Schüler Gerber hat absolviert (1930) (this semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a grammar school student under the oppression of a tyrannical teacher); later editions bore the shortened title Der Schüler Gerber, under which the novel is now generally known.
- … und glauben, es wäre die Liebe (1932)
- Süsskind von Trimberg. Roman. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1972, ISBN 3-10-079002-2 (fictitious biography)
- Die Tante Jolesch oder der Untergang des Abendlandes in Anekdoten (1975) (a collection of amusing yet bittersweet anecdoteAnecdoteAn anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
s about Jewish life and personalities in pre-NaziNazismNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
Vienna and Prague, and in the emigration), translated by Maria Poglitsch Bauer and Sonat Hart, Ariadne Press, 2008, ISBN 9781572411494. - Die Erben der Tante Jolesch (1978) (the sequel to the above)
Further reading
- Marcel Atze/Marcus G. Patka (Ed.):The >>risks of versatility<<. Friedrich Torberg 1908-1979. HolzhausenHolzhausenHolzhausen may refer to:Places*in Germany:**Holzhausen, Saxony-Anhalt, a municipality in the district of Stendal, Saxony-Anhalt**Holzhausen an der Haide, a municipality in the Rhein-Lahn district, Rhineland-Palatinate...
, Vienna 2008 (German title: Die >>Gefahren der Vielseitigkeit<<). ISBN 978-3-85493-156-0
External links
- http://www.forward.com/articles/13829/ (Coffee talk: Reading Friedrich Torberg's Masterpiece)