Book description
The Struggle with the Daemon is a brilliant analysis of the
European psyche by the great novelist and biographer Stefan Zweig.
Zweig studies three giants of German literature and thought: Friedrich
Ho¨lderlin, Heinrich von Kleist and Friedrich Nietzsche Â- powerful
minds whose ideas were at odds with the scientific positivism of their
age; troubled spirits whose intoxicating passions drove them mad but
inspired them to great works. In their struggle with their inner
creative force, Zweig reflects the conflict at the heart of the
European soul Â- between science and art, reason and inspiration.
Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, a member of 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 enjoyed literary fame.
His stories and novellas were collected in 1934. In the same year, with
the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British
citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil
where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in bed in an apparent
double suicide.
