In the Future of Yesterday

‘A capstone on Rüdiger Görner’s already impressive scholarly work, In the Future of Yesterday is a carefully researched study that eloquently advances new insights in the life of Stefan Zweig.  With an ear for the right word and an instinct for human tragedy, Görner’s meticulous analysis of Zweig’s letters, his diaries, and some of his characteristic works greatly enriches the critical debate about the latter’s world-wide legacy. Full of interesting details on Zweig’s quest for freedom, this is a must-read for anyone interested in the life and work of Europe’s most translated writer of the interwar period.’
Jeroen Dewulf, University of California, Berkeley

‘Rüdiger Görner has written a terrific biography. Resisting the (Zweigian) urge to tell the author’s life as a series of watershed moments speeding unswervingly towards its predestined and tragic end, Görner highlights the conflicts and contingencies that plagued the ever-restless Zweig every step of the way. The result is a monograph that does justice to the complexities of the author’s life and the times he lived in, and that will shape Zweig scholarship for years to come.’
Birger Vanwesenbeeck, Professor State University of New York at Fredonia

‘Rüdiger Görner’s biography of Stefan Zweig is a masterfully narrated and meticulously crafted work. Drawing consistently from Zweig’s literary oeuvre, it seamlessly intertwines both micro- and macro-perspectives on his life with critical reflections on his body of work. This study is particularly distinguished by its adept contextualisation of Zweig’s remarkable life within the broader historical upheavals and the vibrant cultural milieu of early to mid-20th century Europe.’
Stephan Resch, University of Auckland

‘Rüdiger Görner’s lively biography of Stefan Zweig marshals the fruits of an academic career spent thinking deeply about modern European literature and history. His erudition is lightly worn and his digestible essais explore the overlaps Zweig’s reading, writing, and travel. Not merely concerned with the events of Zweig’s life, Görner returns to his literary texts to pose new questions about his subject and the nature of biography itself. Contextualising Zweig’s correspondence and diaries, as well as his fictional and biographical works, within a broader network of modern European writers, In the Future of Yesterday is an intellectual history grounded in Zweig’s personal life and works that yields indispensable insights into this most ambitious and prolific of writers.’
Ian Ellison, University of Oxford, author of Late Europeans and Melancholy Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium

‘A meticulously researched, supremely erudite and intensely readable biography of one of the greatest European authors of the twentieth century, Stefan Zweig. Rüdiger Görner traces the development of the writer and intellectual, his humanism, pacifism, experience of exile, and enduring global legacy. Illuminating both the Austrian writer’s life and work, Görner persuasively illustrates how Zweig is ‘a writer from the past for our time’. This study offers both a rich biography of the influential German-language author, as well as an expansive literary and intellectual history of early twentieth-century Europe.’
Katya Krylova, University of Aberdeen