Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman

This classic Austrian novella paints a deeply moving portrait of a woman whose quest for passion and purpose comes at a steep price
 
The less I felt in myself, the more strongly I was drawn to those places where the whirligig of life spins most rapidly.

So begins an extraordinary day in the life of Mrs C—recently bereaved and searching for excitement and meaning. Drawn to the bright lights of a casino, and the passion of a desperate stranger, she discovers a purpose once again but at what cost?

In this vivid and moving tale of a compassionate woman, and her defining experience, Zweig explores the power of intense love, overwhelming loneliness and regret that can last for a lifetime.'The rediscovery of this extraordinary writer could well be on a par with last year's refinding of the long-lost Stoner, by John Williams' Simon Winchester, Daily Telegraph

'At once the literary heir of Chekhov, Conrad, and Maupassant' Harvard Review

'The Updike of his day... Zweig is a lucid writer, and Bell renders his prose flawlessly' New York Observer

'Zweig is the most adult of writers; civilised, urbane, but never jaded or cynical; a realist who nonetheless believed in the possibility--the necessity--of empathy' IndependentStefan 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. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling 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.