Books by Friedrich Torberg
“This book is popular in Austria, but not so well known outside. It’s melancholy and nostalgic but also very funny. It evokes Jewish café life before the Anschluss. You had these eccentric characters who were often highly knowledgeable on all sorts of esoteric subjects… Torberg writes a string of anecdotes about these men, bringing to life sometimes famous, other times unknown figures. He said the fall of Austria was one of the most catastrophic incidents of humourlessness in world history.” Read more...
The best books on Jewish Vienna
Brigid Grauman, Journalist
Interviews where books by Friedrich Torberg were recommended
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1
Tante Jolesch or the Decline of the West in Anecdotes
by Friedrich Torberg & Maria Poglitsch Bauer (translator) -
2
The Road into the Open
by Arthur Schnitzler & Roger Byers (translator) -
3
The Radetzky March
by Joseph Roth -
4
The World of Yesterday
by Stefan Zweig & Anthea Bell (translator) -
5
Last Waltz in Vienna
by George Clare
The best books on Jewish Vienna, recommended by Brigid Grauman
The best books on Jewish Vienna, recommended by Brigid Grauman
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Vienna had a vibrant intellectual and cultural life, embraced and at times led by key figures in its large Jewish community. All that would disappear with the rise of anti-Semitism and the Anschluss. Many Jews fled or committed suicide. Others were deported to concentration camps. After the war some went back, but Vienna would never be the same. Here Brigid Grauman, whose father’s family were assimilated Jews from Vienna, recommends books that evoke that poignant, tragic period that ended with World War II.
