The Works of Solitude By Gyoergy Sebestyen, Translation and Afterword by Michael Mitchell

This work belongs to the Austrian tradition of large-scale novels in which Austria becomes a stage on which human dramas of the widest significance are played out, a tradition going back to Robert Musil's The Man without Qualities. The narrative is multifaceted. Against the pessimistic satirical portrayal of public life are set the hero's practical attempts to foster a sense of the organic unity of life through his teaching. They are "works of solitude," actions which proceed from a sense of individual value rather than conforming to the homogenized standards of modern society.