Joseph Roth once was called by a fellow refugee in Paris “probably the greatest poet among the decent men”. The ingenious story teller and enthusiastic Habsburg Austrian, the Jew from Galicia who sent “Christian christmas greetings from a Jewish heart”, the uncompromising anti-fascist – he was also a great controverter. The petty bourgeois took away from him his home Austria, or better: what was left of it, his desperately adored monarchy, but also his identity as a writer. They expulsed him from the German language into exile.  In his phantasy he remained the young lieutenant Trotta. The old Austria with its old emperor, “the cold sun of the Habsburgs, that still was a sun”, persisted to be his home, till he died in Paris. Roth’s novels are part of the world’s literary heritage today. But his wonderful personal essays are lesser known. Ernst Konarek introduces us to both sides of the literary cosmos of Josef Roth.

An joint event of the Jewish Museum and the Hohenems Festival Emsiana ►