author
Hans Flesch-Brunningen
1895–1981
A sharp-eyed Austrian novelist, translator, and broadcaster, he wrote from the fault lines of 20th-century Europe. Exile, politics, and the moral pressure of history run through much of his work.
1 Audiobook
Das zerstörte Idyll: Novellen
by Hans Flesch-Brunningen
About the author
Born in Brno in 1895 and raised in Abbazia and Vienna, Hans Flesch-Brunningen studied law before turning toward literature and journalism. His life took him across several European cities, including Italy, France, and Berlin, and that wider European experience helped shape the cosmopolitan outlook in his writing.
After the rise of Nazism, he left for Britain in the 1930s. He later worked for many years with the Austrian section of the BBC as a speaker, translator, and editor, building a second career in broadcasting while continuing his literary work.
Flesch-Brunningen is remembered as an Austrian writer and translator whose books engaged closely with the upheavals of his age. He returned to Vienna in the 1960s, and in 1972 married the writer Hilde Spiel. He died in Bad Ischl in 1981.