Leo Perutz

Leo Perutz, born on November second, eighteen eighty-two in Prague, was a multifaceted Austrian novelist and mathematician. He spent a significant part of his life in Vienna until the Nazi Anschluss in nineteen thirty-eight, which prompted his emigration to Palestine. Perutz's academic prowess was evident as he formulated an algebraic equation that bears his name and worked as a statistician for an insurance company.

Perutz was not only a mathematician but also a prolific writer, crafting his first novel, The Third Bullet, in nineteen fifteen while recuperating from a war injury sustained during the First World War. Over his literary career, he authored eleven novels that garnered admiration from notable figures such as Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Ian Fleming, Karl Edward Wagner, and Graham Greene. Wagner notably praised Perutz's The Master of the Day of Judgment as one of the finest non-supernatural horror novels.

In the nineteen fifties, Perutz returned to Austria intermittently, enjoying the summer and autumn months in the picturesque market town of St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut and in Vienna. His life came to a close in the serene Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl in nineteen fifty-seven. Interestingly, he was related to the renowned biologist Max Perutz, highlighting a legacy of intellectual achievement within his family.