Sometimes, the best authors of a certain period remain hidden or are forgotten by posterity. This is unfortunately also the case with the brilliant German author of absurd and paradoxical short stories, Kurt Kusenberg (1904–1983). Quite similar to Franz Kafka and Haruki Murakami, but always with a strong sense of humor, Kusenberg created outstanding and timeless narratives that ironically undermine the rational approach to our world and suggest that there are alternative forces with a considerable impact on us. Things are often not what they appear to be at first sight, and the individual commonly finds him/herself in a rather unexpected context that defies the mechanical notion of our existence. Kusenberg invites us consistently to smile about the absurdity of our lives and suggests abandoning our trust in material reality because things might turn out to be rather different than normal. This author was fully aware of the existential crisis the modern individual suffers from, but the narrator manages to smile about it and so makes us scratch our heads in a creative bewilderment.
