Robert Walser (1878-1956) was born into a German-speaking family in Biel, Switzerland. He left school at fourteen and led a wandering, precarious existence while writing his poems, novels, and vast numbers of the "prose pieces" that became his hallmark. In 1933 he was confined to a sanatorium, which marked the end of his writing career. Among Walser's works available in English are A Schoolboy's Diary and Berlin Stories (available as NYRB Classics), The Tanners, Microscripts, The Assistant, The Robber, Masquerade and Other Stories, and Speaking to the Rose: Writings, 1912-1932. Tom Whalen is a novelist, short story writer, poet and critic who has written for Agni, Bookforum, Film Quarterly, the Washington Post and other publications. Co-editor of the Robert Walser Number of The Review of Contemporary Fiction, he has translated and written extensively on Walser's work. His books include Winter Coat, Dolls, Elongated Figures, The Birth of Death and Other Comedies: The Novels of Russell H. Greenan, and The President in Her Towers. He teaches film at the State Academy of Art and Design in Stuttgart, Germany. Nicole Kongeter is a freelance translator and teacher of English and German in southwest Germany. Annette Wiesner's translations of Robert Walser have appeared in Connecticut Review, Kestrel, and Witness. She works as project manager for a software company in Weilimdorf, Germany.