Swiss writer, one of the contributors to the Heimatkunst (“homeland”) movement—a literature striving for the reproduction of the life and atmosphere of the provinces. His realistic prose, though conventional, shows insight into the daily life of the Alpine people.

Zahn was at first president of the Diet of the canton of Uri and then manager of a railway restaurant at Göschenen. After 1917 literary success enabled him to devote his life solely to writing, and he moved to Meggen, near Luzern. His more popular works include collections of short stories, Bergvolk (1896; “Mountain Folk”) and Helden des Alltags (1906; “Weekday Heroes”), and the novels Albin Indergand (1901), Herrgottsfäden (1901; Golden Threads), Frau Sixta (1926), and Die grosse Lehre (1943; “The Large Lesson”). Zahn's Was das Leben zerbricht (1912; “What Life Breaks”) is about the middle-class society of Zürich.