Three Women

One of the greatest authors of the 20th century, the Austrian writer Robert Musil (1880-1942) is best known for his magnum opus The Man Without Qualities, which portrays the power of love and sexual attachment to bridge chasms of gender, class, and nationality, while showing how limited that power is in the face of ingrained social structures.

His short story collection Drei Frauen (Three Women) -- consisting of "Grigia," "The Portuguese Lady," and "Tonka" -- was published in 1924. As this major new translation by Geoffrey C. Howes reveals, Musil in these tales explores Europe on the verge between civilization and brutality, the modern and pre-modern, nationalism and humanism, and between "precision and soul," to use Musil's own phrase. In encounters with the three women of the title, each male protagonist glimpses a possibility for re-imagining his male identity, each responding in different ways.

Professor of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages at Bowling Green State University, Geoffrey C. Howes has published numerous critical essays and previously translated Metropolis Vienna by Peter Rosei, also published by Green Integer.