The Notebooks of Malte Laudris Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge’ was Rainer Maria Rilke’s only novel, and is said to have greatly influenced such other writers as Jean-Paul Sartre. It was written whilst Rilke lived in Paris, and was published in 1910. The novel is semi-autobiographical, and is written in an expressionistic style. The work was inspired by Sigbjørn Obstfelder’s work ‘A Priest’s Diary’ and Jens Peter Jacobsen’s second novel ‘Niels Lyhne’ of 1880, which traces the fate of an atheist in a merciless world. The book was first issued in English under the title Journal of My Other Self.