Stefan Zweig

'One hardly knows where to begin in praising Zweig's work' - Ali Smith 'The Updike of his day... Zweig is a lucid writer, and Bell renders his prose flawlessly' - New York Observer Perfectly paced and brimming with passion - twenty-two tales from a master storyteller of the twentieth century In this indispensable collection of short stories, Stefan Zweig captures the best and worst of human nature. At the heart of these tales lies passion - from a humble waiter's love for an aristocratic guest to an exiled Frenchwoman's longing for the glitter of court life, and a bookseller's fatal lust for print in wartime Vienna. Translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell, and spanning a prolific literary career, these stories form a map of the human soul, drawn by a writer both tender and perceptive. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe. Translated by Anthea Bell. Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 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. Between the wars, Zweig 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, Zweig left Austria, and lived in London, Bath and New York - a period during which he produced his most celebrated works: his only novel, Beware of Pity, and his memoir, The World of Yesterday. He eventually 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. Anthea Bell (1936-2018) ranked among the leading literary translators of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her work from German, French and Danish into English encompassed the writings of Kafka, Freud, E.T.A. Hoffmann, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Georges Simenon, W.G. Sebald, René Goscinny, Cornelia Funke and many others. Her translations for Pushkin Press of Stefan Zweig have reintroduced to English-language readers the work of one of the most popular European authors of the interwar period. She won numerous literary awards, some of them several times, and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2015.

A casual introduction, a challenge to a simple game of chess, a lovers' reunion, a meaningless infidelity: from such small seeds Zweig brings forth five startlingly tense tales-meditations on the fragility of love, the limits of obsession, the combustibility of secrets and betrayal. To read anything by Zweig is to risk addiction; in this collection the power of his writing-which, with its unabashed intensity and narrative drive, made him one of the bestselling and most acclaimed authors in the world-is clear and irresistible. Each of these stories is a bolt of experience, unforgettable and unique.

In this magnificent collection of Stefan Zweig's short stories the very best and worst of human nature are captured with sharp observation, understanding and vivid empathy. A knock on a door that forces a whole community to take flight, an aging womaniser who meets his match, a love soured into awful cruelty-these stories present a master at work, at the top of his form. Translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell

"Die reiche Geschichte, die noch reichhaltigere Kultur, die ebenso friedlichen wie freundlichen Menschen, die exotische Natur: Wenige L nder begeistern Zweig so sehr, wie jener riesige Staat in Südamerika, den er immer wieder bereist. Mit gro en Scharfsinn sagt er dem Land seine Zukunft voraus." Redaktion Gr ls-Verlag (Edition Werke der Weltliteratur)