One should always only adhere to what he doesn't say. Any new book by poet, essayist, writer, and translator Hans Magnus Enzensberger, one of the world's most influential and internationally renowned German intellectuals, is cause for notice and reflection, and Mr. Zed's Reflections is no exception. Every afternoon for almost a year, a plump man named Mr. Zed comes to the same spot in the city park and engages passers-by with these quick-witted repartees. Those who pass ask, who is this man? A wisecracker, a clown, a belligerent philosopher? Many shake their heads and move on; others listen to him, engage with him, and, again and again, end up at the same place. He doesn't write anything down but his listeners often take notes. With predilection, subversive energy and masterful brevity, Mr. Zed undermines arrogance, megalomania, and false authority. A determined speaker, who doesn't care for ambitions, he forces topics that others would rather keep to themselves. Reluctant to trust institutions and seeing absolutely nothing as "non-negotiable", he admits mistakes and does away with judgment. He is no mere ventriloquist of his creator - he is too stubborn for that. And at the end of the season, when it becomes too cold and uncomfortable in the park, he disappears, never to be seen again. Collected here in this thought-provoking and unique work are the considerations and provocations of this squat, park-bench philosopher, giving us a volume of truths and conversations that are clear-cut, skeptical, and fiercely illuminating.

"Hans Magnus Enzensberger is one of Germany's leading public intellectuals. He belongs to the same generation as Gunter Grass and Jurgen Habermas, although he has been less bien pensant, less predictable, than either. His early poetry, lyric verse with a strong political content, won him the Georg Buchner Prize and he is now widely regarded as Germany's foremost living poet. Enzensberger is the most important postwar writer you have never read." - London Review of Books

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is the author of numerous books, including The Silences of Hammerstein, A History of Clouds: 99 Meditations, and Brussels, the Gentle Monster, all published by Seagull Books. Martin Chalmers is a Berlin-based translator from Glasgow. He has translated some of the best-known German-language writers, including Herta Muller and Elfriede Jelinek.