In the Future of Yesterday: A Life of Stefan Zweig

In the Future of Yesterday offers a refreshing approach to the life and work of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig and delves into his considerable contribution to world literature, rooted in the Austro-Jewish tradition. His privileged social background saw him embrace European culture and cosmopolitanism. A world traveller from the outset he liked to uproot himself but whether he stayed in London, New York or, eventually, in Brazil, his literary baggage continued to contain the flair of fin de siècle Vienna.

This biography re-examines Zweig’s influential time in England and offers new insights into his final years in the United States and Brazil; it discusses some of his prolific literary output in relation to his life; and takes his political views on Europe, Zionism, and the world order more in greater depth than previous appraisals of Zweig’s life. 

But the considers the many contradictions in his views and attitudes, which included an initial, and surprising, leniency towards Fascist. Most importantly though, In the Future of Yesterday presents Zweig as a towering figure of a form of writing that was bursting with ‘life’ and was written in the knowledge that there can only be a future if we remain conscious of the past. In that sense at least, Zweig is a writer for our time.