Stefan Zweig

The widely traveled and prolific author Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna on November 28, 1881. Until 1935, apart from his numerous trips abroad, he lived in Austria (Vienna and Salzburg). He translated works by Verlaine, Baudelaire, and Verhaeren, published poetry ("Silver Strings," "The First Wreaths"), novellas ("Fear," "Amok," "Confusion of Feelings," etc.), plays ("Volpone"), essays, as well as most of the works in a large series of biographical studies and literary portraits of great personalities from the past ("Three Masters: Balzac-Dickens-Dostoevsky," "Romain Rolland," "Marie Antoinette," "Mary Stuart," "The Triumph and Tragedy of Erasmus of Rotterdam," etc.). In 1933, with the rise to power of the National Socialists in neighboring Germany, Zweig's books became targets of Nazi propaganda. In 1935, he permanently left Austria, settled in London, and in 1940 acquired British citizenship. In 1941, he moved to the United States and then to Brazil. Disheartened by the political events and the end of the era he described in his autobiographical work "The World of Yesterday," he committed suicide with his wife on February 23, 1942, in Petrópolis, near Rio de Janeiro.