'One of the masters of the short story' Guardian 'I have to tell you - you see, this is just about the strangest experience I have been through...'These six stories of obsession, secrets, delusions and desires from one of the greatest European writers show individuals caught up in forces beyond their control - whether an art dealer agreeing to a heartbreaking deception, a soldier destroyed by war, a servant infatuated with her employer or a young boy witnessing illicit adult passions. Portraying innocence lost and lives crushed by history, each tale is a psychologically acute, startling human drama. Translated by Jonathan Katz

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna to a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. Recognition as a writer came early for Zweig; by the age of forty, he had already won literary fame. In 1934, with Nazism entrenched, Zweig left Austria for England, and became a British citizen in 1940. In 1941 he and his second wife went to Brazil, where they committed suicide. Zweig's best-known works of fiction are Beware of Pity (1939) and Chess (1942), but his most outstanding accomplishments were his many biographies, which were based on psychological interpretation.
Jonathan Katz is a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the University's Public Orator. He is the translator of Six Stories by Stefan Zweig (Penguin, 2023) as well as works by Goethe, Theodor Storm and Joseph Roth.