This presentation focuses upon the multicultural and multilingual context in which the German-speaking Austro-Hungarian writer Joseph Roth (1894-1939) grew up and it also relates his only partially- assumed identity as a Jew in a milieu that clearly favoured other ethnic and religious groups with the way in which he developed as an author. Throughout his career as a soon-to-be celebrated journalist and writer of fiction, Roth tried to harmonise his longing for his Jewish background with his profound interest in German and French culture and for both Socialism and Catholicism, together with pro-Habsburgic legitimism in his later years, while keeping a keen, objective and well-informed eye on European politics and society. He consistently fought for a tolerant, cosmopolitan Europe where cultural and ethnic diversity would be viewed as an improvement, thus battling against the trends current in his lifetime. His continuous efforts to bring together mutually-excluding elements, in an attempt to achieve a harmonious, multicultural identity, without doubt provide one of the clues to his markedly conflict-burdened existence.