Stefan Zweig
“Our world of security was a castle in the air.”
Revisiting a talented pre-war Austrian Jewish writer.
The World of Yesterday.
Jews won’t save themselves by staying out of politics.
“They mean to burn our books, and us along with them.”
Stefan Zweig was a reasonable man. But Herzl saw that the age to come was not going to be reasonable.
“A drunken madman has taken hold of the world’s rudder and is sending us zigzagging into the abyss.”
How an eccentric doctor created a national treasure.
Though he’s now largely unknown, for many Europeans of my generation he was the most important writer of our time. Were we right about him?
The famed elegist of turn-of-the-century Vienna has sparked renewed interest. Is it because he sustains the dream—or, rather, the fantasy—of a Europe that never was. . .
The renowned Austrian Jewish author Stefan Zweig, in comfortable exile during World War II, committed suicide in Brazil in February 1942. Why?