Early 20th century Swiss novelist
Swiss writer Robert Walser (1878-1956) worked as a bank clerk, a butler in a castle, and an inventor's assistant, and produced nine novels and more than a thousand stories. He stopped writing in 1933 when he was hospitalized for mental illness, declaring, "I am not here to write, but to be mad."
Microscripts
A Little Ramble
Thirty Poems
The Walk
The Tanners
The Assistant
“Walser vaulted new heights of expression with miniscule means.”
— The Boston Globe on Robert Walser's Microscripts
“The hope that shines forth in the moments of self-knowledge, transcendence, and grace Walser describes is anything but meager: on the contrary, it is exultation the writer feels when he perceives the sublime in the tiniest details of everyday life. ”
— The Brooklyn Rail on Robert Walser's The Walk
“If poets like Robert Walser could be counted among our foremost intellects, there wouldn't be any war. If he had 100,000 readers, the world would be a better place.”
— on Robert Walser's The Walk
Carson McCullers
Paul Van Ostaijen
Robert Penn Warren
Nathanael West
Christine Brooke-Rose
Robert Helbling
Fleur Jaeggy