Translation of Franz Werfel's Der Tod des Kleinbürgers into Portuguese

Abstract

Franz Werfel was born in 1890 in Prague. His family belonged to the Jewish community of German Bohemia. A poet, storyteller and novelist, he was a member of the Prague group, a contemporary of Franz Kafka. He was editor of great German-speaking poets such as Georg Trakl. In the 1920s he married Alma Mahler and lived in Vienna until they realized how dangerous it had become to be Jewish in territories under the Nazis. They emigrated to the United States, where he became an American citizen in 1941. He died in 1945, at the age of 54, of a heart attack. Published in 1926, the novel "The Death of a Poor Man", is set in the period after the First War, a time of great demographic movement in the nations that originated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, characterized by strong immigration of the Czech population of Germanic origin to Vienna. The rapid urban modernisation was not followed by the creation of jobs needed for the population. With the shattering of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the military lost their usefulness and prestige. Many had to be fired and they were lucky if they could receive a post as civil servants. Here is the translation of chapter 01 of the novel.