Karl Kraus

Karl Kraus is considered one of the most important satirists in world literature and an outstanding figure of Viennese modernism. The almost one thousand volumes of his magazine "Die Fackel" and his seven hundred lectures characterised the intellectual climate at the turn of the century. He astutely exposed the philistine morals of his time, the corruption of the press and, above all, the physiognomy of an era that led to the "primal catastrophe of the 20th century", the First World War, to which he created a unique monument in his monumental drama "The Last Days of Mankind". In his posthumously published work "The Third Walpurgis Night", written in 1933, he reveals the character of the Nazi dictatorship as the dark flipside of modernity.
Bruno Kern presents a well-founded and readable biography to mark the 150th anniversary of the writer's birth. The aptly selected original quotations whet the reader's appetite for reading Kraus. The illustrated city tour in the footsteps of the great writer is particularly appealing for all Vienna connoisseurs and lovers.