The author of these two novellas, Lou Andreas-Salomé, is not as well known through her own writing as through her friendships with such men as Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sigmund Freud, Martin Buber, et al., exceptional men upon whom she had a significant influence. As one of the first women to study at a European university, her relationships with men differed vastly from those of other women of her time, making her one of the avant-garde of the women's movement. Fenitschka is based on an experience in Andreas-Salomé's life which gave rise to the opera, Lulu, by Alan Berg, while Deviations refers to an opera written about her by the Italian composer Guiseppe Sinopoli. Whereas the first work bears only a slight resemblance to this exceptional woman, the second one, though not a chronological account of her life, captures her spirit much more faithfully—once again bearing witness to the fact that she aroused and stimulated the creativity of those whose lives she touched.
