One of Europe's best know authors fled with the rise of Hitler but never managed to find a place where he felt at home. The author handles his subject with care and does a good job of making the reader understand the idea of exile. Yes, there were many others with worse situations, Zweig had the means to move many times, to Paris, England, New York, Ossining, NY, and Brazil but that didn't mean he could find what he left in Vienna. Interestingly, this is an author that was so popular in his time that we know almost nothing about. I freely admit I had never heard his name. Now I will have to read some of his works. How does fame work like that? Possibly that is the part of the story that is the lease interesting. Zweig as a character with loves and friends and feelings is the most interesting. His life was beautiful and it was tragic.
Saw at Midwinter that Prochnik (Rebecca Mead's husband, remember?) has a new book about someone else I've never heard of and whose name I can't remember...That photo of Zweig and his wife post-mortem was quite something, I thought.
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