Aufsätze (Essays) is a collection of Robert Walser’s short German prose pieces — a form midway between the essay, the sketch, and the lyric prose poem. Walser’s essays resist the conventions of argument and conclusion; instead they wander, observe, digress, and circle back with an air of delighted aimlessness that conceals considerable precision.
Susan Sontag placed Walser among the most important writers of the twentieth century, and his Aufsätze show why — each piece is a small revelation of what prose can do when it sheds the burden of purpose. Download this free public-domain EPUB to spend time with one of literature’s most enchanting minds.