Author Description

Ernst Toller (December 1, 1893 – May 22, 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, after which he became the head of its army. He was imprisoned for five years for his part in the armed resistance by the Bavarian Soviet Republic to the central government in Berlin. While in prison, Toller wrote several plays that gained him international renown. They were performed in London and New York City as well as in Berlin and other places. In 1933, Toller was exiled from Germany after the Nazis came to power. He did a lecture tour in 1936–1937 in the United States and Canada, settling in California for a while before going to New York. He joined other exiles there. He died by suicide in May 1939. This book of translations includes four plays by Toller written at Fortress Niederschönenfeld. Transfiguration and Masses and Man establish his reputation as an expressionist in the turbulent post WWI era. And while The Machine Wreckers and Heinkemann were more traditional plays, they still carried on his tradition of innovation and his fight for social justice.