Journey into the Past
By Stefan Zweig
Translated by Anthea Bell
“The latest novella available to English-speaking readers, Journey Into the Past—found among Zweig’s papers after his death and now published by New York Review Books Classics in a masterly translation by Anthea Bell and with an introduction by André Aciman…”—Words Without Borders
“Journey into the Past is vintage Stefan Zweig—lucid, tender, powerful and compelling.”—Chris Schuler, The Independent
“The art is in the telling…a powerful love story…Excellent Foreword by writer Paul Bailey”—David Herman, The Jewish Chronicle
A deep study of the uneasy heart by one of the masters of the psychological novel, Journey into the Past, published here for the first time in America, is a novella that was found among Zweig’s papers after his death. Investigating the strange ways in which love, in spite of everything—time, war, betrayal—can last, Zweig tells the story of Ludwig, an ambitious young man from a modest background who falls in love with the wife of his rich employer. His love is returned, and the couple vow to live together, but then Ludwig is dispatched on business to Mexico, and while he is there the First World War breaks out. With travel and even communication across the Atlantic shut down, Ludwig makes a new life in the New World. Years later, however, he returns to Germany to find his beloved a widow and their mutual attraction as strong as ever. But is it possible for love to survive precisely as the impossible?
Paperback
100 pages
NYRB Classics, 2010
Originally published in 1976
5 x 0.4 x 8 inches
ISBN 9781590173671
Romance, Historical Fiction