Description

By (author) Zweig, Stefan; Translated by Bell Anthea; Introduction by Lezard Nicholas

”Zweig”s fictional masterpiece”
GUARDIAN

”An intoxicating, morally shaking read… A real reminder of what fiction can do best”
ALI SMITH

”It”s just a masterpiece. When I read it I thought, how is it that I don”t already know about this?”
WES ANDERSON

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The only novel written by one of the most popular writers of the twentieth century

In 1913, young second lieutenant Hofmiller discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance-so begins a series of visits, motivated by pity, which relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope.

Stefan Zweig”s unforgettable novel is a devastating depiction of the betrayal of both honour and love, amid the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

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It”s just a masterpiece. When I read it I thought, how is it that I don”t already know about this?

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Zweig”s fictional masterpiece

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It really touched me. I”m not an easy crier, not at all. But this book was one of the few moments that I found myself sobbing. It was a knife to my heart

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The novel I”ll really remember reading this year is Stefan Zweig”s frighteningly gripping Beware of Pity, first published in 1939 … and part of the ongoing, valiant reprinting by Pushkin Press of Zweig”s collected oeuvre; an intoxicating, morally shaking read about human responsibilities and a real reminder of what fiction can do best

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An unremittingly tense parable about emotional blackmail, this is a book which turns every reader into a fanatic

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Beware of Pity is the most exciting book I have ever read…a feverish, fascinating novel

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Original and powerful

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Combines great storytelling with wonderful prose

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It”s a masterpiece. I didn”t discover it till I was 16-years-old. He was number one on the bestseller lists in the 1940s. He was a great storyteller and a great writer, amazing combination

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Beware of Pity is chillingly resonant in the Trump era… [in Beware of Pity] this sense of creeping decomposition is compulsively alive. It is hypnotic

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I was riveted by it

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Absolutely marvellous

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In the novel a character remarks that ”the human tendency to self-delusion likes to declare dangers null and void even when we sense in our hearts that they are real

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Beware of Pity… is a tale of the past, memory and regret set in a world about to turn

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One of the most underestimated [novels of all time]… An extraordinary book

Biographical note:
STEFAN ZWEIG (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into 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 was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel, Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. After a short period in New York, Zweig settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.