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Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London where he wrote his only novel, Beware of Pity. He later moved to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. After a short period in New York, Zweig settled in Brazil where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide.Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.One of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century, as perfect in its evocation of the world Zweig loved, as it is in its portrayal of how that world was destroyed
- David Hare,
No one captures the sweep of history like Stefan Zweig... An eerie, spellbinding read
Economist
A marvellous recapturing of a Europe that Hitler and his thugs destroyed. Zweig seems to have known everyone, and writes about the great figures of his day with insight, sympathy and, most unusually for a writer, modesty
John Banville
This absolutely extraordinary book is more than just an autobiography... A book that should be read by anyone who is even slightly interested in the creative imagination and the intellectual life, the brute force of history upon individual lives, the possibility of culture and, quite simply, what it meant to be alive between 1881 and 1942. That should cover a fair number of you
- Nicholas Lezard,
A wonderful book... [Zweig's] writings have come to embody the lost world of the Habsburg Empire... of Europe before the fall
- Dominic Sandbrook,
One of the great accounts of life in Europe in the first part of the twentieth century
- Sheila Heti, New Yorker,
The book fits the uneasy mood of the moment, the nightmarish ways that history can abruptly overturn even the most secure lives. A powerful statement of the implacable power of circumstance on our lives
- Ron Chernow, New York Times,
One of the canonical European testaments... [Zweig's] life and work tell of the perilous flimsiness of our world of security-a message that many insistently deny, but somehow need to hear
- John Gray, New Statesman,
Unnervingly topical
The Week
This is a wonderful book of a lifetime
- Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
I can't recommend it highly enough
- Gareth Russell, Four Thought
Zweig's memoir speaks an important message to us today about how quickly war can erupt and change our lives for good. It also demonstrates how unprepared most people were, ignoring all the signs. Zweig was one of the best known authors in Europe at his time, an excellent observer and writer
EUobserver
Zweig's celebration of the brotherhood of peoples reminds us that there is another way
The Nation
One of liberalism's greatest defenders
New Republic
Zweig's accumulated historical and cultural studies... remain a body of achievement almost too impressive to take in
- Clive James,