Mentioned in his day in the same breath as Kafka, Mynona, a.k.a. Salomo Friedlaender (1871-1946), was a perfectly functioning split personality: a 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 Grotesken. His friends and fans included Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin and Karl Kraus. He died in Paris, ill and in poverty, after Thomas Mann refused to help him emigrate to the United States.