Robert Musil was born on 6 November 1880 in Klagenfurt, Austria, studied mechanical engineering as well as philosophy and psychology and received his doctorate with a dissertation on the subject of ‘Contribution to the evaluation of Mach's teachings’. He turned down a habilitation in favour of his writing career. While Musil was working on the forthcoming publication of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, the annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich in March 1938 made the situation untenable for the Musil couple in Vienna. In August 1938, they moved into exile in Geneva, where the writer died of a ‘cerebral infarction’ on 15 April 1942.