magical night

Author's name: Stefan Zweig

Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig hails from a sophisticated aristocratic background, and his distinguished works derive their strength from the weak, tormented self weighed down by suffering and pain. His collection of short stories, "Enchanted Night and Other Stories," was first published in German in 1922. Twenty years after its release, the world would read of his suicide, along with that of his wife and dog, in Brazilian exile, far from the mighty civilizations grinding themselves apart in a mad global war. In this work, Zweig does not dictate to us the method of crafting a martyr, but rather leaves the site of his human hemorrhage. Zweig was not an obscure writer, though he was published, written about, and from whom much was taken during his lifetime and after his death. Rather, he is one of those to whom today's world returns, immersed in their insight, to whom it returns to understand itself.