There's this monstrous idiot - this monstrous elected idiot - who keeps telling his fellow-idiots to throw my books on a bonfire and beat me up in the street.

Vienna, 1934. Stefan is a successful author - widely read, universally admired, and translated into every language. His is the life of the wealthy playboy, enjoying only the finest luxuries, the toast of cultured European society. Only two things cloud his prospects: the rise of the Nazi Party, and the sudden appearance of a woman who he must know but cannot for the life of him remember.

Christopher Hampton's adaptation of the short story by Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) received its English Language premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in June 2024.

Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Stefan Zweig's passionate, unsettling novella.

About the Author

Christopher Hampton was born in the Azores in 1946. He wrote his first play, When Did You Last See My Mother?, at the age of eighteen. Since then, his plays have included Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Talking Cure, Appomattox and A German Life. Appomattox was turned into an opera by Philip Glass in 2014. He has translated plays by Ibsen, Moliere, von Horvath, Chekhov and Yasmina Reza (including Art and God of Carnage). He has translated seven plays by Florian Zeller, including The Father and The Son, both of which he subsequently co-wrote for the screen with Florian Zeller, winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Father in 2021. Musicals include Rebecca, Stephen Ward, Sunset Boulevard and The Third Man. His screenplays include Dangerous Liaisons, Total Eclipse, The Quiet American, Atonement, Ali & Nino, Carrington, The Secret Agent and Imagining Argentina, the last three of which he also directed.

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 into an affluent Austrian-Jewish family in Vienna. He was known first as a poet and translator and then as a biographer. He travelled widely in Europe before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In the 1920s and 30s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world. He wrote a string of novellas that were international bestsellers, including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Fear and Amok. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he moved to London and became a British citizen. With the fall of France in 1940, Zweig moved to New York before settling in Brazil. In 1942, he and his second wife were found dead in a double suicide.

Book Information
ISBN 9780571393213
Author Christopher Hampton
Format Paperback
Page Count 56
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber