"Poignant and tender Journey into the Past is a story of repressed desire and all-consuming love between a poor, young engineer and a married woman"
Agnès Poirier
"In fiction, I have been on a Zweig kick. In England over December, I noticed that many British newspapers’ year-end recommenders were praising the Pushkin Press for reissuing several works by Stefan Zweig, a brilliant Austrian writer whose work brings to mind that of his compatriot Joseph Roth. (...) these fictions are a treat of prewar European literature"
SYLVIA BROWNRIGG The New York Times
"In fiction, I have been on a Zweig kick. In England over December, I noticed that many British newspapers’ year-end recommenders were praising the Pushkin Press for reissuing several works by Stefan Zweig, a brilliant Austrian writer whose work brings to mind that of his compatriot Joseph Roth. (...) these fictions are a treat of prewar European literature"
SYLVIA BROWNRIGG The New York Times
"Journey into the Past" is vintage Stefan Zweig – lucid, tender, powerful and compelling"
CHRIS SCHULER The Independent
"A remarkable tour de force (...) this is a masterclass in the language of beautiful storytelling"
PAUL BLEZARD The Lady
"Zweig
belongs with three very different masters who each perfected the
challenging art of the short story and the novella: Maupassant,
Turgenev and Chekhov" CHRIS SCHULER The Independent
"A remarkable tour de force (...) this is a masterclass in the language of beautiful storytelling"
PAUL BLEZARD The Lady
PAUL BAILEY
“The art is in the telling (...) a powerful love story (...) Excellent Foreword by writer Paul Bailey”
“The art is in the telling (...) a powerful love story (...) Excellent Foreword by writer Paul Bailey”
DAVID HERMAN The Jewish Chronicle
"One hardly knows where to begin in praising Zweig’s work. One gets the impression that he actively preferred to write about women, and about the great moral crises that send shivers down the spines of polite society"
"One hardly knows where to begin in praising Zweig’s work. One gets the impression that he actively preferred to write about women, and about the great moral crises that send shivers down the spines of polite society"
NICHOLAS LEZARD The Guardian
"The secret superstar"
"The secret superstar"
JULIE KAVANAGH Intelligent Life (The Economist)
"Fortunately, the Pushkin Press has been publishing some of Zweig’s works in fluent translations and handsome editions: it is thus performing a valuable service for British literary culture … My advice is that you should go out at once and buy his books"
"Fortunately, the Pushkin Press has been publishing some of Zweig’s works in fluent translations and handsome editions: it is thus performing a valuable service for British literary culture … My advice is that you should go out at once and buy his books"
ANTHONY DANIELS The Sunday Telegraph
ABOUT THE BOOK
Separated for nine years by the First World War Louise has finally returned home, reconciled at last with the woman he had so passionately loved, and who had promised to wait for him. Previously divided by wealth and class, both are now married and much changed by their experiences. Confronted with an uncertain future, and still haunted by the past, they discover whether their love has survived hardships, betrayals, and the lapse of time.
Zweig's long-lost final novella - recently discovered in manuscript form - is a poignant examination of the angst of nostalgia and the fragility of love.
Zweig's long-lost final novella - recently discovered in manuscript form - is a poignant examination of the angst of nostalgia and the fragility of love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEFAN ZWEIG was born in 1881 in Vienna, a member of a wealthy Austrian - Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and enjoyed literary fame. His stories and novellas were collected in 1934. In the same year, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in bed in an apparent double suicide.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
ANTHEA BELL is the recipient of the Schlegel Tieck Prize for translation from German, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize in 2002 for the translation of W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, and the 2003 Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation. She lives in Cambridge, England.
Recently discovered in manuscript form (Original title: 'Widerstand der Wirklichkeit')
Introduction by PAUL BAILEY
Translated from the German by ANTHEA BELLISBN 978 1 906548 09 4
