Song to Bernadette

Franz Werfel - a classic of Austrian literature of the 20th century, Prague poet, writer and playwright, student of Gustav Meyrink, ally and friend of Max Brod, Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Musil, Martin Buber - was a star. He was considered the face of German-language expressionism and, together with Franz Kafka and Max Brod, was part of the “Prague Circle” - a group of writers and poets who, before the outbreak of the First World War, invented the unheard voice of a new literature. Werfel's poetry was admired by the masters; his plays were staged throughout Europe. Werfel had a developed sense of the tragic, terrible and funny, journalistic observation, a romantic, sometimes mystical view of reality and a rare ability to capture the subtlest movements of the human soul. His late novel “The Song of Bernadette,” which became a bestseller in the United States and was filmed in 1943, is a heartfelt and captivating story of a French girl who was seen by the Virgin Mary in Lourdes; a story of uncompromising honesty, love and admiration for this world against all odds.