Becoming Nobody
Image by Copilot Designer On Christmas Day, 1956, children playing in a snowy field in eastern Switzerland stumbled upon the body of an old man. 78-year-old, frozen to death, eyes open. He had walked out of the nearby mental sanatorium, as he did on most days. His walks used to be long, sometimes 20 km at a stretch. This time the snow did not let him return. The man was Robert Walser, once a writer of some standing in Switzerland and Germany. He was admired by eminent writers like Kafka and Hesse. Yet for the last quarter century of his life, he had written nothing for publication. “I am not here to write, I’m here to be mad,” he told a visitor. I had not heard of Walser until I read a short story with him as the protagonist in a Malayalam periodical this morning. The story struck me more than it should have in the normal course of life because I’ve been spending my days last week walking in and out of a hospital where my brother lies utterly unconscious after a massive stroke in...
