The first Czech biography of the famous Prague-born poet, novelist and playwright Franz Werfel (1890-1945) is above all an engaging narrative. The author traces the key events of Werfel's life: his childhood and youth in Prague, the beginnings of his professional literary career in Leipzig and Vienna, his meeting with Alma Mahler, his stay in Semmering, Austria, and Italy, his adventurous escape from the Nazis through occupied France, Spain and Portugal to the USA, and the last years of his life in California. The book includes the author's reportage of his travels in the poet's footsteps: Jungk searched through archives, literary documents, published and unpublished texts and letters, visited the places where the poet lived, and searched through the memories of people who knew him. From this information, he composed a picture of the artist's life. He also succeeded in convincingly capturing the period, the characters of friends and critics (W. Haas, M. Brod, F. Kafka, R. M. Rilke, E. E. Kisch, K. Kraus, etc.).
Czech edition