The Post-Office Girl
By Stefan Zweig
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
2009 PEN Translation Prize Finalist
The logic of capitalism, boom and bust, is unremitting and unforgiving. But what happens to human feeling in a completely commodified world? In The Post-Office Girl, Stefan Zweig, a deep analyst of the human passions, lays bare the private life of capitalism.Christine toils in a provincial post office in post–World War I Austria, a country gripped by unemployment. Out of the blue, a telegram arrives from Christine’s rich American aunt inviting her to a resort in the Swiss Alps. Christine is immediately swept up into a world of inconceivable wealth and unleashed desire. She feels herself utterly transformed: nothing is impossible. But then, abruptly, her aunt cuts her loose. Christine returns to the post office, where yes, nothing will ever be the same.
Christine meets Ferdinand, a bitter war veteran and disappointed architect, who works construction jobs when he can get them. They are drawn to each other, even as they are crushed by a sense of deprivation, of anger and shame. Work, politics, love, sex: everything is impossible for them. Life is meaningless, unless, through one desperate and decisive act, they can secretly remake their world from within.
Cinderella meets Bonnie and Clyde in Zweig’s haunting and hard-as-nails novel, completed during the 1930s, as he was driven by the Nazis into exile, but left unpublished at the time of his death. The Post-Office Girl, available here for the first time in English, transforms our image of a modern master’s achievement.
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) war ein österreichischer Schriftsteller, dessen Werke für ihre psychologische Raffinesse, emotionale Tiefe und stilistische Brillanz bekannt sind. Er wurde 1881 in Wien in eine jüdische Familie geboren. Seine Kindheit verbrachte er in einem intellektuellen Umfeld, das seine spätere Karriere als Schriftsteller prägte. Zweig zeigte früh eine Begabung für Literatur und begann zu schreiben. Nach seinem Studium der Philosophie, Germanistik und Romanistik an der Universität Wien begann er seine Karriere als Schriftsteller und Journalist. Er reiste durch Europa und pflegte Kontakte zu prominenten zeitgenössischen Schriftstellern und Intellektuellen wie Rainer Maria Rilke, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann und James Joyce. Zweigs literarisches Schaffen umfasst Romane, Novellen, Essays, Dramen und Biografien. Zu seinen bekanntesten Werken gehören "Die Welt von Gestern", eine autobiografische Darstellung seiner eigenen Lebensgeschichte und der Zeit vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg, sowie die "Schachnovelle", die die psychologischen Abgründe des menschlichen Geistes beschreibt. Mit dem Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus in Deutschland wurde Zweig aufgrund seiner Herkunft und seiner liberalen Ansichten zunehmend zur Zielscheibe der Nazis. Er verließ Österreich im Jahr 1934 und lebte in verschiedenen europäischen Ländern, bevor er schließlich ins Exil nach Brasilien emigrierte. Trotz seines Erfolgs und seiner weltweiten Anerkennung litt Zweig unter dem Verlust seiner Heimat und der Zerstörung der europäischen Kultur. 1942 nahm er sich gemeinsam mit seiner Frau Lotte das Leben in Petrópolis, Brasilien. Zweigs literarisches Erbe lebt weiter und sein Werk wird auch heute noch von Lesern auf der ganzen Welt geschätzt und bewundert.
Read more from Stefan Zweig
Beware of Pity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chess Story (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amok Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burning Secret Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomain Rolland Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
Related to The Post-Office Girl
Related ebooks
An Obscure Apostle: A Dramatic Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Obscure Apostle (Start Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Obscure Apostle Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope — Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Freedom, and Other Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeldwyla Folks Three Singular Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Clockmaker; Or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Earthquake Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Works of Eliza Orzeszkowa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Argonauts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe History of Freedom and Other Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZ. Marcas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInternational Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 7, August 12, 1850 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Other Side of Como Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBartleby and Benito Cereno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Schweres Wasser: Heavy Water Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom New York to San Francisco: Travel Sketches from the Year 1869 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs. Mohr Goes Missing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Stray Studies from England and Italy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Laodicean by Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Royal Mail Its Curiosities and Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings"In the Days of Serfdom" and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMission Budapest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiza or a Nest of Nobles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Blake A Critical Essay Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWriting Belonging at the Millennium: Notes from the Field on Settler-Colonial Place Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Empire of the Tsars and the Russians: Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sun Also Rises: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden (Original Classic Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Scarlet Letter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad (The Samuel Butler Prose Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Post-Office Girl
15 ratings0 reviews