Dünya Edebiyatı serimize Hermann Broch’un öyküleriyle başlıyoruz. Edebiyatla felsefenin ortak sularında gezinmiş bu seçkin yazarın hikâyeleri Türkçede ilk kez kitaplaşıyor. Has okuru tedirginliğe davet ediyoruz: Pencerenin pervazına oturdum ve dışarıya bakarak manzaraya daldım; yaratılmış her şeyin karanlığından duyduğum sonsuz ve korkutucu acı içimi tıka basa doldurdu.
Broch was born in Vienna to a prosperous Jewish family and worked for some time in his family's factory in Teesdorf, though he maintained his literary interests privately. He attended a technical college for textile manufacture and a spinning and weaving college. Later, in 1927, he sold the textile factory and decided to study mathematics, philosophy and psychology at the University of Vienna.
In 1909 he converted to Roman Catholicism and married Franziska von Rothermann, the daughter of a knighted manufacturer. This marriage dured until 1923.
He started as a full-time writer when he was 40. When "The Sleepwalkers," his first novel, was published, he was 45. The year was 1931.
In 1938, when the Nazis annexed Austria, he emigrated to Britain after he was briefly arrested. After this, he moved to the United States. In his exile, he helped other persecuted Jews.
In 1945 was published his masterpiece, "The Dead of Virgil." After this, he started an essay on mass behaviour, which remained unfinished.
Broch died in 1951 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize and considered one of the major Modernists.
çoktandır merak ettiğim hermann broch’la bu kitap sayesinde sonunda tanıştım ve genel hatlarıyla gayet memnun kaldım. kitaptaki dört öykü de oldukça akıcı ve iz bırakan, iyi çevrilmiş öykülerdi. ama özellikle kitaba adını veren ‘barbara’yı diğerlerine fark atarcasına çok sevdim. diğer öyküler de iyiydi diyebilirim ama ‘barbara’ rahatlıkla bir novellaya dönüşebilecek kadar zengin ve iz bırakan cinstendi.