The Last World (German: Die letzte Welt) is a 1988 novel by the Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr.
[2] Robert Irwin wrote in The New York Times: "This remarkable second novel by Christoph Ransmayr, a young Austrian novelist, carries the conviction of an ominous dream".
The Last World, with its careful anachronisms and deformations, is a brilliant exercise in alternative literary history.
"[3] Richard Eder of the Los Angeles Times described the book as a "powerful allegory of rise, fall and change", and wrote: There is nothing Olympian or didactic about Ransmayr's parable.
[4]Eder saw a flaw in how the townspeople of Tomi, unlike the characters in Metamorphoses, fail to become touching to the reader, which makes the story "wooden".