Why read Am I a Redundant Human Being??

Book cover of Am I a Redundant Human Being?

Book description

For the first time in English, a contemporary and friend of Virginia Woolf and Stefan Zweig gives us the definitive portrait of a woman lost on the margins of modern life.

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Women's fiction

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Why read it?

1 author picked Am I a Redundant Human Being? as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Kirsten Menger-Anderson

Author

Though written in the 1930s, Am I a Redundant Human Being? was not published until 2001, several decades after Hartwig’s death in 1967 (the English translation appeared in 2010).

The novel’s narrator, Aloisia Schmidt, reflects on her desire for external validation and a more exciting life, as well as the constant feeling of invisibility. Though she is only about thirty in 1930 Vienna, her ambition is constrained by disappointment, and the coming decade promises more of the same.

From Kirsten's list on love, loss, and logic in 1930s Vienna.