Veza Canetti, The Viennese Short Stories (Translated and with an introduction and notes by Julian Preece)

The rediscovery of the writings of Veza Canetti (1897-1963) was one of the literary events of the 1990s in German-speaking Europe. This title assembles the fiction Canetti published in her lifetime between 1932-1937 aside from her two novels ("The Yellow Street" and "The Tortoises").

She has an acute eye for the dynamics of power in human relationships, be they based on differences in class or sex or both. She is moralistic and engaged but funny; her stories are traditional rather than Chekhovian in their twists of plot and use of the final punchline. In his introduction Julian Preece shows how Veza Canetti was an unrivalled observer of the life of the Viennese poor on the eve of Nazism. Until now Veza Canetti's literary career was overshadowed by her more famous husband, Elias Canetti (1905-1994, Nobel Prize, 1981). His failure to tell the world of her work until shortly before his death, made her two novels, three plays, and short stories even more intriguing.