“He was one of the first star authors, and even in an age with no TV and very few pictures in the newspapers, people recognised him wherever he went,” says Zweig’s biographer Oliver Matuschek, who has spent 20 years researching the writer’s life and works. “The sheer volume is unbelievable,” says Matuschek. “In the collected works in German there are 36 volumes, and that doesn’t include the 500 pieces of journalism that were published in newspapers and magazines in his lifetime.” Stefan Zweig was once ‘the world’s most translated author’ – then he faded into obscurity in the English-speaking world. But a revival in interest is under way... On the evening of 22 February 1942, Zweig and his second wife took a massive dose of barbiturates and lay down next to each other on their bed in Petrópolis near Rio de Janeiro. “The world of my own language sank and was lost to me,” he wrote in his suicide note, “and my spiritual homeland Europe destroyed itself.” Zweig’s slide into obscurity in the English-speaking world began shortly afterwards. Why did this happen? “His books are very much products of pre-war Europe,” says Adam Freudenheim, publisher and managing director of Pushkin Press. “They probably didnt resonate very much in the 1940s to the ‘60s.” Another reason for his recent obscurity is the reluctance of readers in the US and UK to read literature in translation. bbc/culture/story/20140310-the-writer-behind-budapest-hotel
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 08:54:55 +0000
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