Jüdische Erzählungen und Legenden

Stefan Zweig is one of the most successful authors in the German language. He became famous for his novelistic biographies, but his work is particularly characterized by a multitude of novellas. The most well-known is probably "The Royal Game," his last work, which was published posthumously in 1942 in Brazil.

Although Zweig's Jewish heritage does not play a prominent role in his works and he never particularly emphasized the Jewish context in his writings, its significance for Zweig's oeuvre should not be underestimated. In the six novellas and legends gathered here—"In the Snow," "The Wonders of Life," "The Downfall of a Heart," "Rachel Decides with God," "Book Mendel," and "The Buried Candelabrum"—Zweig manages to subtly let the Jewish theme shine through time and again. The texts date from 1901 to 1936 and have been published both as standalone publications and in anthologies. In this form, they are being published together for the first time.