When I first picked up this eerie-looking paperback, attracted by the half-spider, half-human figure on the cover, its author was completely unknown to me. That doesn’t happen a lot (he said immodestly). I could see that Mynona was the German word for “anonymous” spelled backward, but that only fed my curiosity. So I turned to the dust jacket flap of “The Creator” and read the following:
“Mentioned in his day in the same breath as Kafka, Mynona, aka Salomo Friedlaender (1871-1946), was a perfectly functioning split personality: a serious philosopher by day (author of ‘Friedrich Nietzsche: An Intellectual Biography’ and ‘Kant for Kids’) and a literary absurdist by night, who composed black-humored tales he called ‘Groteske.’ His friends and fans included Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, and Karl Kraus.”
I think it was “Kant for Kids”— the mind reels — even more than the mention of Kafka or literary absurdism that made me look further into this odd novella, originally published in 1920.
more here.