Robert Walser (1878–1956) was born in Switzerland. He left school at fourteen and led a wandering and precarious existence working as a bank clerk, a butler in a castle, and an inventor's assistant while producing essays, stories, and novels. In 1933 he abandoned writing and entered a sanatorium—where he remained for the rest of his life. "I am not here to write," Walser said, "but to be mad." DANIELE PANTANO (born February 10, 1976) is a poet, literary translator, editor, and scholar.JAMES REIDEL is a poet, translator, editor, and biographer.RETO SORG is the Director of the Robert Walser Centre in Bern.

"One of the most profound creations and one that is enough on its own to explain why the most powerful of all writers was a favorite author of the merciless Franz Kafka."