Beware of Pity

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 was an international bestseller in his day, particularly with novellas like 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. 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.

Anthea Bell Obe (1936-2018) was among the leading literary translators of the 20th and 21st centuries. Her work from German, French and Danish into English encompassed Kafka, Freud, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Georges Simenon, W.G. Sebald, René Goscinny and many others.