Description: A beautiful new paperback edition of this collection containing five of Stefan Zweig's most powerful novellas.
A casual introduction, a challenge to a simple game of chess, a lovers' reunion, a meaningless infidelity: from such small seeds Zweig brings forth five startlingly tense tales-meditations on the fragility of love, the limits of obsession, the combustibility of secrets and betrayal. A casual introduction, a challenge to a simple game of chess, a lovers' reunion, a meaningless infidelity: from such small seeds Zweig brings forth five startlingly tense tales--meditations on the fragility of love, the limits of obsession, the combustibility of secrets and betrayal. To read anything by Zweig is to risk addiction; in this collection the power of his writing--which, with its unabashed intensity and narrative drive, made him one of the bestselling and most acclaimed authors in the world--is clear and irresistible. Each of these stories is a bolt of experience, unforgettable and unique. This edition includes five powerful novellas:Burning Secret
A Chess Story
Fear
Confusion
Journey into the Past
Review Quotes: "As much in his novellas as in his short stories, the Austrian writer's psychological acuity brought his protagonists and their dilemmas vividly to life... A rediscovery of Zweig through this book gives an enlightening perspective on the past century and how we got where we are today." -- BlogCritics.org
Burning Secret
"Breathtaking ... the final sentence is unlike anything I have ever read before." -- Guardian
'Perhaps the best chess story ever written, perhaps the best about any game' -- Economist Fear
"Brilliant, unusual and haunting ... Stefan Zweig's time of oblivion is over for good." -- Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Confusion
"A marvellously poised account of misunderstood motives, thwarted love, and sublimated desires" -- TLS
Journey into the Past
"Vintage Stefan Zweig -- lucid, tender, powerful and compelling'." -- Independent