Torberg, Friedrich eigentlich F. Kantor-Berg#

b. Vienna, Sept. 16, 1908, d. Vienna, Nov. 10, 1979, narrative writer, essayist, critic and translator. Until 1938 as journalist and theatre critic in Prague and Vienna, fled via Switzerland to France and in 1940 to the USA, where he lived as a script author in Hollywood and New York. In 1951 returned to Vienna; was one of the founders of the satirical monthly magazine "Forum" in 1954, its publisher until 1965. Publisher of the legacy of F. von Herzmanovsky-Orlando ("Collected works", 4 vols., 1957-1963). His popularity was mainly founded on the novel "Der Schueler Gerber hat absolviert" (1930, 1954 under the title "Der Schueler Gerber"), in which he unfolds the psychogram of a high school student who ultimately is driven to suicide. In two volumes about "Tante Jolesch" ("Die Tante Jolesch oder Der Untergang des Abendlandes in Anekdoten", 1975, and "Die Erben der Tante Jolesch", 1978) he remembers the long-vanished world of the Jewish bourgeoisie after World War I in a very satirical, pungent manner. Awarded the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 1976 and the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1979.

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Literature#