author
Angela Langer
1886–1916
Austrian writer Angela Langer lived only briefly, yet she left behind fiction and poetry that caught the attention of major literary circles in the early 1900s. Her work often turns toward inner struggle, poverty, and the emotional lives of women with unusual directness.
3 Audiobooks
Rue and Roses
by Angela Langer
Der Klausenhof: Roman
by Angela Langer
Stromaufwärts: Aus einem Frauenleben
by Angela Langer
About the author
Born in Vienna on December 21, 1886, Angela Langer grew up in difficult circumstances and, as the oldest of nine children, had to work young as a servant. According to Austrian biographical sources, a language teacher noticed her early writing, helped correct it, and encouraged her literary development.
Langer went on to publish poems and prose in respected journals, and her writing also appeared in book form. She is associated with early 20th-century Austrian literature, and her work reached readers beyond the German-speaking world through the English translation Rue and Roses.
Her life was very short: she died on June 25, 1916, in Kirchberg am Wagram, Lower Austria. That brevity gives her writing an added poignancy, especially because it so often explores hardship, longing, and the search for dignity.