Felix Beran

Born in Vienna, Beran trained as an engineer and worked in Mexico and Argentina before settling in Zurich, where he decided to follow his literary interests and published three volumes of poetry. As an editor for the Internationale Rundschau from 1915-1918, he befriended JJ. JJ was fascinated with Beran's poem "Des Weibes Klage", and translated it into English. Following the war, Beran became a director of the household appliance company Elektro Lux in Zurich, married (the first marriage ended in divorce) Elise Fanni Schiek in 1924, and became a Swiss citizen in 1927. In the 1930s, Beran, with JJ's support, began a German translation of Pomes Penyeach, but apart from a single appearance of one poem in Die literarische Welt (2 September 1932), nothing further was published before he died in 1937. William Brockman