THE IMPOSSIBLE EXILE

A psychological study of exile, through the biography of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig.

Stefan Zweig was the most widely translated author in the world. He knew everyone from Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein, to Thomas Mann and Ar-thur Toscanini. Born into a wealthy Viennese family of industrialists and bankers, he made a second fortune through the popularity of his writing. He seemed im-mune to fortune's whims, yet after Hitler's election, in a matter of half a dozen years, this celebrity writer who had dedicated much of his energy to promoting international humanism plummeted into an increas-ingly isolated exile—from London to Bath to New York City, then Ossining, Rio, and finally Petrópolis—where, in 1942, in a mold-eaten bungalow, he killed himself, despairing the loss of his friends, his readership, his homeland, and his vision of Europe. The Impossible Exile tells the story of Zweig's ex-traordinary rise and fall - especially on the final migra-tions of Stefan and his fascinating, often overlooked second wife, Lotte - while weaving together a larger narrative about exile, art, nostalgia, and the promise of the New World, which continues to shimmer in the eyes of many contemporary refugees. GEORGE PROCHNIK's essays, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous journals. He taught English and American literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is the author of In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise and Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam, and the Purpose of American Psychology. He lives in New York City.