Shooting Stars: Ten Historical Miniatures
Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell (translation)One of the twentieth century's great humanists and a hugely popular fiction writer, Stefan Zweig's historical works bring the past to life in brilliant Technicolor. This collection contains ten typically breathless and erudite dramatizations of some of the most pivotal episodes in human history.
From General Grouchy's failure to intervene at Waterloo, to the miraculous resurrection of George Frideric Handel, Zweig's selection is idiosyncratic, fascinating and as always hugely readable.
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STEFAN ZWEIG (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin & Vienna & was first known as a poet & translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, & was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok, & Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel, Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. After a short period in New York, Zweig settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he & his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.