Joseph Roth was an Austrian-Jewish journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga Radetzky March (1932), which explores the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His novel Job (1930) provides a poignant portrayal of Jewish life, while his seminal essay "Juden auf Wanderschaft" (1927), translated into English as The Wandering Jews, offers a fragmented account of Jewish migrations from Eastern to Western Europe following World War I and the Russian Revolution.

In the 21st century, the English publications of Radetzky March and collections of his journalism from Berlin and Paris sparked a revival of interest in Roth. Born as Moses Joseph Roth on 2 September 1894 in Brody, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Ukraine), he was raised in a Jewish family. Roth spent his final years in exile in Paris, where he died on 27 May 1939. Considered alongside Hermann Broch and Robert Musil, Roth is one of the most significant Central European writers of the 20th century. His works are in the public domain and continue to be celebrated for their narrative style and profound historical insights.