STEFAN AND LOTTE ZWEIG’S SOUTH AMERICAN LETTERS:
New York, Argentina and Brazil, 1940–42
Edited and introduced by Darién J. Davis and Oliver Marshall
Born in Vienna in 1881 to a wealthy, secular Austrian-Jewish family, Stefan Zweig was one of the twentieth century’s most respected writers, whose elegant and supremely readable works made him into one of the most translated authors of his time. Foreseeing Nazi Germany’s domination of Europe, Zweig left Austria for England in 1933. In 1941, following a successful lecture tour of South America and several months in New York, Stefan Zweig and Lotte Altmann, his German-born secretary and second wife, emigrated to Brazil, settling in Petrópolis, a mountain resort near Rio de Janeiro. Despairing at Europe’s future and feeling increasingly isolated, on February 22nd, 1942 the Zweigs took a fatal overdose of barbiturates.
Stefan Zweig was an incessant correspondent but as the 1930s progressed, it became difficult for him to maintain contact with friends and colleagues. As Zweig’s correspondence all but ceased with the outbreak of World War II, little is known about his final years. Even less has been written about his life and marriage to Lotte Altmann. This book provides an extensive introduction and analysis of Stefan and Lotte Zweig’s time in South America and the United States, and for the first time reproduces personal letters, written by the couple in Argentina and Brazil along with editorial commentary and notes. Furthermore, Lotte finally emerges from her husband’s shadows, with the letters offering significant insights into their relationship and her experience of exile.
Darién J. Davis is an Associate Professor of History at Middlebury College, Vermont. He has written on race, migration and twentieth-century intellectual and cultural history. His books include Avoiding the Dark: Race and the Forging of National Culture in Modern Brazil (1999) and White Faces, Black Mask: Africaneity and the Early Social History of Popular Music in Brazil (2009).
Oliver Marshall is an independent scholar, based in Sussex, England, with a particular interest in Brazilian and migration history. His publications include Brazil in British and Irish Archives (2007) and English, Irish and Irish-American Pioneer Settlers in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (2005).
find: Bloombsbury Press
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