The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig

Description

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.

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, a member of a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family and studied in Berlin and Vienna before making his name as a writer. His passionate, dramatic short stories and gripping biographies of major historical and literary figures, including Beware of Pity and The World of Yesterday, made him one of the most popular writers in the world in the 1920s and 30s. During these years Zweig travelled widely, enjoying his literary fame and cultivating friendships with many of the great literary figures of his day. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil.

'Vintage Zweig' - The Times 'Breathtaking ... the final sentence [of Burning Secret] is unlike anything I have ever read before' - Nicholas Lezard, Guardian