Robert Walser

Born in Biel, Switzerland, in 1878, he wrote in German and spent much of his early life moving through modest jobs, including clerical work and domestic service. Those experiences fed directly into his fiction, which often notices the comedy, loneliness, and fragile dignity of everyday life.

He published poems, short prose, and novels such as The Tanners, The Assistant, and Jakob von Gunten. His writing can seem light on the surface, but it carries a distinctive mix of wit, freedom, unease, and close observation that has made him a lasting literary presence.

After periods in Berlin and Switzerland, he spent the later part of his life in psychiatric institutions, and he stopped publishing new work many years before his death in 1956. Interest in his books grew strongly after his death, and he is now widely regarded as one of the most original Swiss writers of the twentieth century.