“It's difficult to know where to begin praising Zweig's work” - Ali Smith

“The Updike of his time... Zweig is a clean writer and Bell renders his prose impeccably” - New York Observer

This collection consists of twenty-two short stories by a master storyteller of the twentieth century, perfectly crafted and filled with passion. At the heart of these narratives lies passion - from the love of a humble waiter for an aristocratic guest, to the nostalgia of an exiled Frenchwoman for the splendor of the court, and the destructive desire of a bookseller for printed matter in wartime Vienna.

Translation by the award-winning Anthea Bell, and spanning a prolific literary career, these stories form a map of the human soul, orchestrated by a writer both tender and observant. It is part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless narratives from iconic literary authors, selected from around the world.

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and initially became known as a poet and translator, later as a biographer. Between the wars, Zweig was an international best-seller with a series of highly popular novellas, such as “Letter from an Unknown Woman,” “Amok,” and “Fear.” In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, Zweig left Austria and lived in London, Bath, and New York - a period during which he created his most iconic works: his only novel, "Beware of Pity," and his memoir, "The World of Yesterday." He eventually settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Many of his works are available from Pushkin Press.

Anthea Bell (1936-2018) ranks among the top literary translators of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her work from German, French, and Danish into English included the works of Kafka, Freud, E.T.A. Hoffmann, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Georges Simenon, W.G. Sebald, René Goscinny, Cornelia Funke, and many others. Her translations of Stefan Zweig for Pushkin Press have brought back to English-speaking readers the work of one of the most popular European authors of the interwar period. She has won numerous literary awards, some multiple times, and in 2015 she was honored with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Pages: 720, Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm