Heinrich von Kleist

Born in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1777 into a Prussian military family, Heinrich von Kleist first followed a soldier's path before turning toward study and writing. His life was unsettled and often difficult, marked by constant searching, travel, and periods of personal crisis.

Even in his short lifetime, he produced an extraordinary range of work: plays, novellas, essays, and journalism. Readers still return to him for the strange energy of his writing, where questions of justice, honor, love, and violence are pushed to extremes.

Kleist died in 1811 near Berlin, at just 34. Though he was not fully recognized in his own time, he later came to be regarded as one of the most original and compelling writers in the German language.