The End of the World is an artist book in literary format about Robert Walser’s final walks and silences.

It transports the reader to the last 23 years of Robert Walser’s life, which were spent at a psychiatric institution in Herisau, Switzerland. From his arrival there in 1933 to his death in the snow on Christmas Day 1956, Walser ceased writing. On Sundays he would take long walks, a contrast to the weekdays filled with sorting tin foil at the institution’s workshop and making crossword puzzles in the common room.

The book draws on excerpts from Walser’s asylum file and on photographs taken at the graveyard in Herisau where Walser is buried. The photographs show scenes depicted on the gravestones surrounding Walser’s grave. The dreamy landscapes and paths encountered there seem like a continuance of Robert Walser’s walk.

The layout of the book mirrors the repetitive nature of Walser’s days, weeks, years at the clinic – and blank space is treated as a meaningful element.

The book concludes with an afterword, overview of sources and biographical sketch.