Der Gehülfe (The Assistant), published in 1908, is one of Robert Walser’s three early novels and a characteristic expression of his unique literary sensibility. Written in German, it follows Josef Marti, a young man who takes a position as assistant to an inventor living in a bourgeois suburban household, and observes the small dramas and quiet absurdities of that domestic world with Walser’s trademark mixture of irony, tenderness, and evasion.
Walser, the Swiss master of minor experience and self-effacing prose, is one of modernism’s most original voices — admired by Kafka and Robert Musil. Download this free public-domain EPUB to discover his distinctive art in one of his most accessible longer works.