He worked as a critic and journalist in Vienna and Prague until 1938, when his Jewish heritage compelled him to emigrate to France and, later, to the United States, where he worked as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and New York. In 1951 he returned to Vienna, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Torberg is known best for his satirical writings in fiction and nonfiction, as well as his translations into German of the stories of Ephraim Kishon, which remain the standard German language version of Kishon's work.
Selected works
Der Schüler Gerber hat absolviert (1930) (this semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of a high school student under the oppression of a tyrannical teacher)
Die Tante Jolesch oder der Untergang des Abendlandes in Anekdoten (1975) (a collection of amusing yet bittersweet anecdotes about Jewish life and personalities in pre-Nazi Vienna and Prague)
Die Erben der Tante Jolesch (1978) (the sequel to the above)
Torberg's route from Austria to the America was hardly direct: after forced flight from Vienna and Prague, a stint in the French military, and a narrow escape after the fall of France, Torberg was one of the lucky few émigrés, who, sponsored by a Hollywood studio, was allowed to enter the country.
Torberg, particularly during his exile in Southern California in the last years of the war, presented in much of his creative work both the ambivalence felt by those who had successfully escaped the terror and the need to express solidarity with those who were not as fortunate.
Torberg's early career as a writer and journalist in Vienna and Prague during the interwar years can be seen as a not uncommon path for those who looked with some longing at the best aspects of the monarchy, particularly those transnational tendencies that had succumbed to the centrifugal forces of nationalist aspirations.
He worked as a critic and journalist in Vienna and Prague until 1938, when his Jewish heritage compelled him to emigrate to France and, later, to the United States, where he worked as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and New York.
Torberg is known best for his satirical writings in fiction and nonfiction, as well as his translations into German of the stories of Ephraim Kishon, which remain the standard German language version of Kishon's work.
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