Leo Perutz – Der schwedische Reiter

Edited and with an epilogue by Hans-Harald Müller.

Wondrously colourful and dark at the same time, Perutz describes the world in “The Swedish Rider”, which takes the reader back to the time around 1700 in no time at all. The novel tells of the intertwined fates of two unequal men: war and barbarism dominate the scene in which a nameless vagabond and the deserted Swedish officer Christian von Tornefeld meet. The one takes on the identity of the other with cunning and malice, but also out of love for a young woman…