Literature and Politics: Selected Writings

“Politics is will and not truth. A very primitive formulation, but rich in consequences.”

Robert Musil was keenly aware of literature’s vulnerability to what he called “the over-reach and encroachment of politics”, but he was also an acute observer of the ways in which literature and politics interact. Literature and Politics presents Musil’s writings on the relationship between literature and politics from World War I through World War II and elucidates his personal struggle to bear witness...