Martin Kessel is a late-born child of German romanticism. His novels, books of aphorisms, poems, and essays treat the tension between inner ideality and the surrounding reality; stylistically, this tension is expressed through the use of a satirical and ironically exaggerated realism filled with paradoxes and puns.

Born in Plauen in Saxony, Kessel studied German literature, philosophy, music, and art at the universities of Frankfurt am Main, Munich, and Berlin. In 1923 he received his Ph.D. with a dissertation on Thomas Mann's novellas. He has since been living as an independent writer in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. In the early 1920s Paul Hindemith introduced Kessel to the Novembergroup, a circle of artists, architects, and theater directors which promoted modern concepts of the arts, held semipublic workshops, and organized exhibitions. It was then that Kessel began having essays and poetry published in various journals. An eye ailment kept Kessel from having to...