Hermann Broch (1886–1951)

Hermann Broch was a novelist, playwright, mathematician, and engineer. He was born in Vienna in 1886; he came to the United States in 1938. The Sleepwalkers (1932) Broch's prose trilogy describes three stages in the disintegration of modern European society. The Death of Virgil (1945), whom Broch considered a prototype of the modern individual, depicts the last eighteen hours of the life of Virgil. Broch's vision of the immanence of death will probably be regarded as his most original contribution to human experience. Broch was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1941-42), a membership in the American Institute of Arts and Letters (1942), and a Rockefeller Fellowship for Philosophical and Psychological Research at Princeton (1942-44). Broch died in 1951. (Bowker Author Biography) Hermann Broch was a novelist and playwright. He was born in Vienna on November 1, 1886. Broch studied physics, mathematics, and philosophy at the University of Vienna. Broch's first major work was the trilogy, The Sleepwalkers, which used historical events in the Europe of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to illustrate the decline of European society. His book The Seducer, caused Adolf Hitler to send Broch to a Nazi prison for five months. An international group of artists that included James Joyce arranged for Broch to escape to the United States. Broch's last novel was The Death of Virgil. After its release in 1945, Broch devoted himself to works on political theory and to helping European refugees. Broch died on May 30, 1951. (Bowker Author Biography)

— biography from La Mort de Virgili

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