Showing results by author "Stefan Zweig" in All Categories

Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.

In the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a young cavalry officer is invited to a dance at the home of a rich landowner. There - with a small act of attempted charity - he commits a simple faux pas. But from this seemingly insignificant blunder comes a tale of catastrophe arising from kindness and of honour poisoned by self-regard. Beware of Pity has all the intensity and the formidable sense of torment and of character of the very best of Zweig's work. Definitive translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell.

With the age of voyages of discovery in the 15th century, the curtain of history slowly came down on the late Middle Ages. Portuguese and Spanish seafarers set out to remeasure the dimensions of the earth. Numerous spices and fruits, which we would hardly be able to do without today, found their way to Europe for the first time. Columbus discovered America in 1492 on his quest for India. Six years later, it was left to Vasco da Gama to travel through the sea route to India sought by Columbus on the eastern route around Africa.

"The others form the human being, I depict him; and here I present an individual who is quite poorly formed and whom I would certainly make largely differently if I had to reshape him. But now that's the way he is." This phrase from the famous essays of Michel de Montaigne outlines the character of the author and his work. Montaigne wrote his essays not from a position of certainty but from an awareness of his inadequacy. He thus reveals a level of critical self-reflection that, before his time, was rarely put on paper.

Vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg und dem anschließenden Zerfall der Habsburger Monarchie kam es in Österreich zu einer bedeutenden Blütezeit in der Philosophie, Malerei, Architektur, Musik und Literatur. Diese Epoche wird auf den Zeitrahmen von ca. 1880 bis 1925 datiert und beinhaltete viele verschiedene Strömungen, wie beispielsweise den Impressionismus, die Dekadenz und die Neuromantik. Abseits von Schnitzler und Hofmannsthal prägten auch Schriftsteller wie Stefan Zweig, Felix Salten und Robert Musil diese Epoche mit ihren Werken.

The fame of the The Royal Game is evident in the number of translations. The last work of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig can be read today in over 60 languages. The first translation into English appeared in New York in 1944. In Germany, the book has become a constant bestseller. The first-person narrator learns of the presence of the world chess champion Mirko Czentovic on a boat trip from New York to Buenos Aires. Together with his acquaintance Mc Connor and other chess players, the first-person narrator manages to challenge the world champion to a game of chess.

In this book, Stefan Zweig traces 12 fateful events of world history in his unique artistic style: from the conquest of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople by the Turks, to the Battle of Waterloo to Sir Robert Falcon Scott's tragic South Pole expedition. The human character and sometimes simple fate are decisive historic factors that have led to dramatic and lasting changes in the past. Often short, coincidental and highly dramatic moments have the potential to change the future of mankind in a decisive manner – the so called "Great Moments of Humanity".

Immediately following the death of her young son, distraught and heartbroken, a woman sends a heart-wrenching letter to the only man she has ever loved, chronicling their love affair, opening with, "To you, who have never known me."

Stefan Zweig dedicated this largely biographical work to the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Zweig acknowledges Freud's scientific contributions and highlights some weaknesses of his fellow countryman. Freud's actual achievement is less to be found in scientific detail, but in the multitude of his contributions with which he enabled and inspired the thinking, rethinking and research of many of his successors. Zweig describes the life of Freud and the genesis of psychoanalysis with his usual linguistic virtuosity.

A principios del siglo XX, en una pensión de la Riviera, una viuda inglesa ya mayor regala a un anónimo oyente austriaco una confesión imprevista: en su juventud, tuvo un encuentro en un casino de Montecarlo con un joven aristócrata polaco que la llevó a vivir veinticuatro horas de frenesí, a debatirse con las convenciones de la sociedad y a arriesgarlo todo por una pasión pasajera.

Stefan Zweig was born on the 28th November 1881 in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and into a wealthy Jewish family with interests in banking and textiles. Zweig first published in 1900 and two decades later was a popular and highly regarded author in many parts of the world, although not in England. He was also the librettist with Richard Strauss of two operas and a keen collector of autographed musical manuscripts. His collection of over two hundred pieces was later donated to the British Library.

Sin capacidad para cualquier otra actividad intelectual, Mirko Czentovicz se reveló, ya desde niño, como un genio del ajedrez, del que ha llegado a ser campeón del mundo. Pero, en un viaje en barco de Nueva York a Buenos Aires, se le presenta un enigmático contrincante: el señor B., noble vienés que huye de los nazis. Uno de los pasajeros del vapor se acerca a los dos personajes acompañando al lector a la confrontación entre los dos jugadores.

Mit den Erinnerungen eines Europäers hat Stefan Zweig seine persönliche, zugleich eine der besten Analysen der Jahrzehnte zwischen dem ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert und dem 2. Weltkrieg verfasst.

A dazzling biographical study of the greatest German philosopher of the nineteenth century by one of the most widely read German-language authors of the twentieth century. In this vivid and eloquent biography, Zweig largely eschews the traditional academic discourse on the philosopher's work, instead concentrating entirely on Nietzsche as a person, his habits, his passions and his obsessions. Stefan Zweig describes the tragedy of Nietzsche's existence, his seclusion from the world, in self-imposed isolation, in a compelling and impressive way.

Wir schreiben das Jahr 1941. Nach Aufenthalten in New York, New Haven und Rio de Janeiro übersiedelt Stefan Zweig, gefeierter und weltweit gelesener Schriftsteller, österreichischer und vor den Nazis geflohener Jude, mit seiner Frau Lotte in das 60 Kilometer von Rio entfernte Städtchen Petropolis, wo er einen kleinen Bungalow mietet, um dort weiter an seinen Texten zu arbeiten. Trotzdem gelingt es ihm, in der Abgeschiedenheit von Petropolis seine Autobiografie Die Welt von Gestern zu beenden und die Schachnovelle – vielleicht sein heute bekanntestes Werk – zu schreiben.

Why do two continents bear Amerigo Vespucci's name instead of Columbus's, despite Columbus reaching the New World first? Stefan Zweig solved this historical mystery in his 1942 final work through archival detective work. The answer: A German cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller, working in 1507, read an account claiming Vespucci reached the mainland before Columbus. Based on this likely forged document, Waldseemüller labeled the continents "America." The name spread across Europe in thousands of copies before the error was recognized—by then, too late to correct.

Joseph Fouché (1759-1820) est l'une des figures les plus énigmatiques de son temps. Il a servi avec zèle la République, le Directoire, le Consulat, l'Empire et la Monarchie. Homme de l'ombre, disciple de Machiavel, Fouché aura survécu à tous les changements de régime sans jamais se départir de cette "absence de conviction" qui fascina Balzac autant que Stefan Zweig. Élève chez les Oratoriens, il devint sous la Révolution un pilleur d'églises. Conventionnel modéré, il vota la mort du roi et participa activement au massacre des Lyonnais royalistes.

Chess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic...

Verden av i går er Stefan Zweigs erindringer fra hans oppvekst i Wien i et kulturelt og kosmopolitisk miljø. Dette er under den trygge, gylne tiden inntil den optimistiske troen på fornuften og fremtiden plutselig går i grus ved utbruddet av 1. verdenskrig. I mellomkrigstiden utvikler Zweigs forfatterskap seg og blir et av de mest leste. Han arbeider for et pasifistisk kosmopolitisk Europa og forteller om sine vennskap med store europeiske personligheter, som Freud, Rilke, Joyce, Wagner og mange andre.