author
Robert Hohlbaum
1886–1955
An Austrian-German novelist, dramatist, poet, and librarian, Robert Hohlbaum drew on Central European history and borderland identity for his widely read fiction. His career moved from Vienna’s university library to major cultural posts in Duisburg and Weimar.
1 Audiobook
Sänger und Könige : Novellen
by Robert Hohlbaum
About the author
Born on August 28, 1886, in Jägerndorf in Austrian Silesia, Robert Hohlbaum studied German and Romance languages at the universities of Graz and Vienna, earning a doctorate in 1910. After serving as an artillery officer on the Italian Front during World War I, he returned to library work in Vienna.
Hohlbaum published his first volume of novellas, Der ewige Lenzkampf, in 1912 and went on to write historical novels, stories, poems, and plays. His best-known works included Österreicher, Grenzland, Der wilde Christian, and the Frühlingssturm trilogy. He later directed the municipal library in Duisburg and the Landesbibliothek in Weimar, receiving the Bauernfeld Prize in 1921 and the Adalbert Stifter Prize in 1951.
His writing and public career were closely connected to the nationalist cultural politics of his time, and his relationship with German and Austrian political movements remains an important part of his literary legacy. He returned to Austria near the end of his life and died in Graz on February 4, 1955.