author
Oskar Baum
1883–1941
A largely forgotten voice from Prague’s German-speaking literary world, he was a close friend of Franz Kafka and part of the circle around Max Brod and Felix Weltsch. Blind from childhood, he brought that experience into fiction, essays, and music criticism with unusual sensitivity.
1 Audiobook
Zwei Erzählungen
by Oskar Baum
About the author
Born in Plzeň on January 21, 1883, Oskar Baum was a German-language writer, music teacher, and critic from Bohemia. He lost his sight while still young and later trained in music in Vienna, going on to work as an organist, piano teacher, and reviewer.
Baum became an important member of the Prague Circle, the group of German-speaking Jewish writers and thinkers that included Franz Kafka, Max Brod, and Felix Weltsch. He is often remembered as one of Kafka’s close friends and early readers, but he was also a writer in his own right, publishing novels, stories, plays, and essays.
His work is often linked to life on the margins, Jewish identity, and the experience of blindness. Though he remained less famous than some of his friends, his writing offers a valuable glimpse into the cultural life of Prague in the early twentieth century. He died in Prague in 1941.