The Maimed

Hermann Ungar (1893-1929) was born to a prominent Jewish family in Boskovice, Moravia and studied at university in Berlin and Prague, where he later lived. He was wounded is the First World War and was awarded the Silver Medal of Valor. In 1920, after a stint as a dramaturge and actor at the Municipal Theatre in Cheb, he entered the Czechoslovak foreign service, becoming trade attach at the Czechoslovak embassy in Berlin. His first book, a volume of short stories that was highly praised by Thomas Mann, was published the same year. Called back to Prague in 1928, Ungar resigned from the service in 1929, several weeks before his death of acute appendicitis.

Fiction. Translation. Hermann Ungar (1893-1929) was born to a prominent Jewish family in Boskovice, Moravia and studied in Berlin and Prague where he later lived. THE MAIMED is a novel set in Prague that relates the story of a neurotic, socially inept bank clerk who is eventually forced to have sexual relations with his widowed landlady. He must also witness the physical and mental deterioration of a friend who is suffering from an unnamed disease. Part psychological farce, THE MAIMED is a dark, ironic tale of chaos overtaking one's meticulously ordered life. This is the first time Hermann Ungar's work has appeared in English. In his time, Ungar was praised by Thomas Mann who commented about THE MAIMED ."a sexual hell, full of filth, crime and the deepest melancholy--a monomaniacal digression of an inwardly pure artistry...." Translated from the German by Kevin Blahut. Illustrated by Pavel Rut.