Background
Herbert was born on November 14, 1923, in Salzkammergut, Austria. He was the son of uneducated farmers: Adolf and Aloisia Zand.
Herbert Zand
Herbert Zand
Herbert Zand
essayist novelist translator poet
Herbert was born on November 14, 1923, in Salzkammergut, Austria. He was the son of uneducated farmers: Adolf and Aloisia Zand.
Herbert attended schools in Bad Aussee, Austria, 1934-38.
Sent to the Eastern Front after being drafted by the German army, Herbert experienced the horrors of war, which he portrayed later in his 1953 novel Letzte Ausfahrt (“The Last Sortie”). Prior to that effort, he had published Die Sonnenstadt in 1947. He lived from 1954 as a publishing editor in Vienna, from 1961 he was an employee of the Austrian Society of Literature.
In 1953 Zand produced a book of poems, Die Glaskugel (“The Glass Sphere”), and in 1956 he published a novella, Der Weg nach Hcissi el emel (“The Well of Hope”). Said to be a perfectionist, Zand burned one manuscript and left others unfinished. The last book to appear in his lifetime was Erben des Feuers (“Inheritors of Fire”), a mystery novel published in 1961.
Despite his increasing bad health, the direct result of his war wounds, Zand continued to write creatively almost until his death of kidney failure in 1970. A collection of his essays, sketches, interviews, and diary entries was brought out by his friend Wolfgang Kraus in 1973.
Quotes from others about the person
According to Pamela Saur, Zand was “a captivating storyteller who knew the appeal of suspense and adventure, mystery and romance” who also “confronted the modern problem of finding meaning and identity in an apparently senseless universe.”
Pamela Saur concluded, “Zand’s writings convey his fundamental vision of human beings drawing sustenance and a sense of permanence from the land, however bloodstained that land may be.”
On June 16, 1953 Herbert married Minnie (Mimi) Gutjahr.