You loved him for decades and he doesn't even know your name... A DEVASTATING PORTRAIT OF SILENT OBSESSION: Yearning, heartbreak, and tragedy unfold in this haunting autopsy of a broken heart. “In … Zweig's most famous story, an obsessive passion lays bare the truth about a hypocritical society civilized to the point of inhumanity.” —Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell, these 4 pieces of Stefan Zweig’s short fiction are among his most celebrated and compelling work. The titular tale offers a devastating depiction of unrequited love. Returning home to Vienna, an author in midlife opens a letter from a woman he has no memory of, but who has loved him her whole life. From a youthful crush to a night of shared passion, she has shaped her entire existence around the quiet pursuit of his attention. Yet, despite their intimacy and a child born of their union, she remains a ghost in his biography. Elsewhere in the collection, Zweig explores the fragile architecture of the heart: A young man mistakes his beloved for her sister. - Two former lovers reunite after a lifetime of silence. - A married woman repays a haunting debt of gratitude to a childhood sweetheart. Expertly paced, laced with the acutely accurate psychological detail and empathy that are Zweig's trademarks, this is a powerful addition to Pushkin's unequalled collection of his work. “What did Zweig have that brought him the fanatical devotion of millions of readers, the admiration of Herman Hesse, the invitation to give the eulogy at the funeral of Sigmund Freud? To learn that, we would have to have a biography that illuminated all aspects of his work, that read all of his books, and that challenged, rather than accepted, the apparent modesty of his statements about his life and work.” – Benjamin Moser, Bookforum In the 1920s and 30s, Stefan Zweig was one of the most famous writers in the world. Thanks to the enterprising Pushkin Press, it is now possible to read the novellas on which his reputation must finally depend." -  Paul Bailey, Times Literary Supplement "Touching and delightful. Those adjectives are not meant as faint praise. Zweig may be especially appealing now because rather than being a progenitor of big ideas, he was a serious entertainer, and an ardent and careful observer of habits, foibles, passions and mistakes." — A.O. Scott, The New York Times 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 Belle 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. When r., the famous novelist, returned to Vienna early in the morning, after a refreshing three-day excursion into the mountains, and bought a newspaper at the railway station, he was reminded as soon as his eye fell on the date that this was his birthday. His forty-first birthday, as he quickly reflected, an observation that neither pleased nor displeased him. He swiftly leafed through the crisp pages of the paper, and hailed a taxi to take him home to his apartment. His manservant told him that while he was away there had been two visitors as well as several telephone calls, and brought him the accumulated post on a tray. R. looked casually through it, opening a couple of envelopes because the names of their senders interested him; for the moment he set aside one letter, apparently of some length and addressed to him in writing that he did not recognize. Meanwhile the servant had brought him tea; he leant back in an armchair at his ease, skimmed the newspaper again, leafed through several other items of printed matter, then lit himself a cigar, and only now picked up the letter that he had put to one side. It consisted of about two dozen sheets, more of a manuscript than a letter and written hastily in an agitated, feminine hand that he did not know. He instinctively checked the envelope again in case he had missed an explanatory enclosure. But the envelope was empty, and like the letter itself bore no address or signature identifying the sender. Strange, he thought, and picked up the letter once more. It began, “To you, who never knew me,” which was both a salutation and a challenge. He stopped for a moment in surprise: was this letter really a