author
Paul Zech
1881–1946
A vivid voice of German Expressionism, he wrote poetry, plays, and prose shaped by hard work, war, and exile. His life took him from industrial labor in his youth to literary circles in Berlin and, later, to exile in Buenos Aires.
1 Audiobook
Der schwarze Baal: Novellen
by Paul Zech
About the author
Born on February 19, 1881, in Briesen, West Prussia (now Wąbrzeźno, Poland), Paul Zech became known as a German poet, playwright, writer, and translator. He was one of the notably prolific figures of German Expressionism, and accounts of his life often note that he sometimes reshaped parts of his own biography, so the broad outline is clearer than every detail.
Early in life he worked in manual trades and is widely associated with time spent in the coal-mining world, experiences that helped give his writing its gritty, intense atmosphere. He first gained attention for lyric poetry and later wrote work marked by the upheavals of World War I, while also building a reputation in Berlin literary life during the 1910s and 1920s.
After the rise of Nazism, he went into exile in South America and lived in Argentina for the rest of his life. He died in Buenos Aires on September 7, 1946. Today he is remembered for the restless energy of his language and for a body of work that connects Expressionist art with the political and personal dislocations of the early twentieth century.