TEHRAN – A Persian translation of Austrian philosophical novelist and essayist Robert Musil’s literary debut “The Confusions of Young Törless” has come to Iranian bookstores.

First published in 1906, the book has been translated into Persian by Mahmud Haddadi. Now is the publisher of the book.

Like his contemporary and rival Sigmund Freud, Robert Musil boldly explored the dark, irrational undercurrents of humanity. 

“The Confusions of Young Törless”, published in 1906 while he was a student, uncovers the bullying, snobbery, and vicious homoerotic violence at an elite boys' academy. 

Unsparingly honest in its depiction of the author’s tangled feelings about his mother, other women, and male bonding, it also vividly illustrates the crisis of a whole society, where the breakdown of traditional values and the cult of pitiless masculine strength were soon to lead to the cataclysm of the First World War and the rise of fascism. 

More than a century later, Musil’s first novel still retains its shocking, prophetic power.

Musil graduated from military boarding schools at Eisenstadt and then Hranice, which at that time was also known as Mahrisch Weibkirchen. These school experiences are reflected in “The Confusions of Young Törless”.

He served in the army during The First World War. When Austria became a part of the Third Reich in 1938, Musil left for exile in Switzerland, where he died of a stroke on April 15, 1942. 

Musil collapsed in the middle of his gymnastic exercises and is rumored to have died with an expression of ironic amusement on his face. He was 61 years old.

Photo: A combination photo shows writer Robert Musil and the front cover of the Persian edition of his book “The Confusions of Young Törless”.

MMS/YAW