Thought Flights

Robert Musil (1880-1942) was an Austrian writer, philosopher, and essayist, considered one of the greatest names in 20th-century literature. Born in Klagenfurt on November 6, 1880, Musil graduated in engineering, but it was in literature that he found his vocation. He entered the University of Berlin, where he studied psychology, philosophy, and mathematics, and completed his doctorate in 1908. Before dedicating himself to writing, he worked as a civil servant and completed his military service during the First World War, which influenced his critiques of the society of the time. In the following years, he worked in Vienna as a writer and journalist. During the Anschluss, the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938, Musil took refuge with his Jewish wife in Switzerland, first in Zurich and then in Geneva, where he died in 1942 at the age of 61. Although he received little recognition during his lifetime, Robert Musil left a remarkable legacy that reflects on the complexities of the human condition and existential uncertainty.