About the Author

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.