Creator Bio
Elias Canetti
1905–1994
Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardic family, Elias Canetti was a German-language novelist, essayist, and dramatist who lived in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and England. He is known also for his study of Kafka’s letters and for a three-volume autobiography. Canetti received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981.
Content by Elias Canetti
Primary Source
A Visit to the Mellah
Elias Canetti
On the third morning, as soon as I was alone, I found the way to the mellah [in Marrakesh]. I came to an intersection where many Jews were standing around. Traffic was streaming past them and around a…
Primary Source
The Tongue Set Free
Elias Canetti
Ruschuk, on the lower Danube, where I came into the world, was a marvelous city for a child, and if I say that Ruschuk is in Bulgaria, then I am giving an inadequate picture of it. For…
Related Guide
Postwar Jewish Life Writing
1945–1973
Life writing in the postwar period explored the Holocaust, displacement and migration, cultural identity, and the deteriorating situation of Jews behind the Iron Curtain.