The Last Days of Mankind

“A superb translation.”—Bill Marx, Arts Fuse

“[A] remarkable achievement—in a translation by Fred Bridgham and Edward Timms that is itself a remarkable achievement. . . . The Last Days of Mankind, Kraus’ unsparing evisceration of Austrian hypocrisy during World War I, deserves to be considered one of the classics of that war’s literature, and like all great works, its specific criticisms continue to resonate a century later.”—Mitchell Abidor, Jewish Currents

“Full of inventive aperçus and devastating moments of humanity’s inhumanity . . . [and] eminently readable.”—J. O. Wipplinger, Choice

“A fine English translation.”—Joel Schechter, Howlround

Winner of the 2016 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work, sponsored by the Modern Language Association

“The Last Days of Mankind is the strangest great play ever written.”—Jonathan Franzen, author of The Kraus Project

“Fred Bridgham and Edward Timms’ translation of the complete The Last Days of Mankind, the apocalyptic drama by Karl Kraus, fills the major gap in the presentation of the Viennese literature on WWI in [English]. It is one of the greatest documents of the language of euphemism, misdirection, and deceit. Kraus simply repeats, in the mouths of his characters, the language heard and read on the streets and cafes in Vienna before and during the war. It heralds the Austro-Hungarian collapse in 1919, turned by Kraus into a massive drama for the mind and the ear. What is most compelling is that it sounds like what all governments tell their population (and their population repeats) about the need, the glory, and the success of war but without any hint at its gore and horrors.”—Sander Gilman, Emory University

“Among his audience he created at least one unified and unalterable attitude: an absolute hatred of war.”—Elias Canetti