The Examination. Translated by F.A. Voigt.

Bookseller Notes

Scarce. A novel of oppressive schooling, in part based on the authors own experiences but also evoking the spate of suicides among schoolchildren in 1929, a fact noted by the author early in the text. Torberg's work, 'Der Schler Gerber hat absolviert', was banned by the Nazis; it ranks with the earlier 'Die Verwirrungen des Zglings Trle', by fellow-Austrian Robert Musil (who admired Torberg's novel) as a study of the brutal and often tragic power imbalance within an educational setting, as a microcosm of intergenerational encounters within the wider society.The author's first novel, which he was encouraged to publish by Max Brod. The only one of his works to be translated into English.