Broch, Hermann (1886–1951)

Austrian novelist. He used experimental techniques in Die Schlafwandler/The Sleepwalkers (1932), Der Tod des Vergil/The Death of Virgil (1945), and Die Schuldlosen/The Guiltless (1950), a novel in 11 linked stories. He moved to the USA in 1938 to avoid persecution by the Nazis.

Broch was born in Vienna. He worked as a textile engineer but soon gave this up for literary and intellectual pursuits. His first work was the novel trilogy The Sleepwalkers, intricate and formal in structure, and dealing with the search for knowledge. The Death of Virgil is an intriguing, diffuse inner monologue of the last 18 hours of the Roman poet's life, meditating on moral and ethical values of the past and the present. A work of monumental emotional and philosophical evaluation, it continues to have considerable impact. The Guiltless, Broch's last major work, is ironic, even humorous, and tends to summarize his thoughts.