Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig (/ˈʃtɛ.fan t͡svaɪ̯k/), born on 28 November 1881 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, and died on 22 February 1942 in Petrópolis, Brazil, was an Austrian writer, playwright, journalist and biographer.

A friend of Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schnitzler, Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss and Émile Verhaeren, Stefan Zweig was part of the Viennese intelligentsia. He left his native country in 1934, owing to the rise of Nazism and his Jewish origins, seeking refuge first in London, then in Brazil, where he took his own life with his wife Lotte. His work consists essentially of biographies (Joseph Fouché, Marie-Antoinette, Marie Stuart), but also of novels and novellas (Amok, La Pitié dangereuse, La Confusion des sentiments, Le Joueur d'échecs). In his testamentary book, Le Monde d'hier. Souvenirs d'un Européen, Zweig becomes a chronicler of Europe's 'golden age' and analyses what he saw as the failure of a civilisation.