Elias Canetti was a witness to the most cataclysmic events of the twentieth century; he was their analyst and their chronicler. A Sephardic Jew, born on the fringes of Europe in Roustchouk, Bulgaria, in 1905, he identified himself through European classical literature and the German language without forgetting his cultural roots. In his magnum opus Masse und Macht (1960), one of his prime examples of the survivor is the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37–ca. 100 A.D.), who became a Roman citizen and assistant to the Roman commander Titus. In Die Stimmen von Marrakesch (1967) Canetti's visit in the Jewish quarter is the highlight of his narrative. Finally, Canetti's analysis about Franz Kafka's troubling relationship with his fiancée Felice Bauer is no less a chapter of Central European Jewish cultural history than it is the account of a prominent writer torn by his duties, desires, and sense of integrity.

As was the case with Flavius Josephus and Franz Kafka, in Canetti's life, past and present, tradition and innovation, occidental and oriental influences represented equally strong forces. Faced by war and genocide perpetrated by those who spoke the language of his choice and were members of the culture he had come to love, Canetti did not disavow the German language and culture. Even while in exile in England he remained aloof, a cosmopolitan, and a critic of those who supported violence, regardless under which circumstances. “In Kriegen geht es ums Töten,” he writes. “‘Die Reihen der Feinde wurden gelichtet.’ Es geht um ein Töten in Haufen. Möglichst viele Feinde werden niedergeschlagen; aus der gefährlichen Masse von lebenden Gegnern soll ein Haufen von Toten werden” (MM, 77). Identifying with more than one society, Canetti remained impartial to causes, programs, and ideologies. He took sides only against death itself, the misguided who killed on behalf of demagogues, and others who killed for the sheer pleasure of it.

Canetti was the oldest of three sons and the member of a minority among European minorities. He grew up a polyglot and a student of world cultures, including nations and groups that received little or no attention except perhaps from anthropologists and ethnographers — the Lele of Kasai, the Jivaros, the Pueblo Indians, the Shi'ites in Karbala, and the Xosas (MM, 151–58, 173–81, and 226–35).