Who was Robert Walser?

Robert Walser (1878–1956) was a Swiss writer best known for his prose, short stories, and novels. He is considered one of the most significant and influential figures in 20th-century German-language literature.

Here are a few key aspects of his life and work:

• Style: His writing is celebrated for its playfulness, irony, and deep psychological insight. He often focused on the lives of ordinary people, laborers, and outsiders, capturing the fleeting nature of everyday existence.
• The "Microscripts": Late in his life, Walser developed a unique practice of writing his drafts in a tiny, cryptic handwriting—a script so small that for decades, researchers believed it to be a form of secret shorthand. It was later deciphered to reveal fully realized, brilliant literary works.
• Life and Health: After living in Berlin for several years—where he found some success—he returned to Switzerland. He struggled with mental health issues and voluntarily entered the Waldau Sanatorium in 1929. He eventually moved to another facility in Herisau, where he stopped writing entirely for the last 23 years of his life.
• Legacy: He died of a heart attack while on a solitary walk in the snow on Christmas Day in 1956. Though he was not widely famous during his lifetime, he became a major influence on later writers like Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, and W.G. Sebald.

Some of his most noted works include the novels The Assistants, The Tanners, and Jakob von Gunten.