Book cover for The Struggle with the Daemon: Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche by Stefan Zweig

The Struggle with the Daemon

Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche

2012 Released
336 Pages
5-6 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Paperback Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Pushkin PressISBN 9781908968210
Translated by Eden Paul

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 Holderlin, Heinrich von Kleist and Friedrich Nietzsche – 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 – between science and art, reason and inspiration.

Both highly personal and philosophically wide-ranging, this is one of the most fascinating of Zweig’s renowned biographical studies.

Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), novelist, biographer, poet, and translator, was born in Vienna into a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. During the 1930s, he was one of the bestselling writers in Europe, and was among the most translated German-language writers before the Second World War. With the rise of Nazism, he moved from Salzburg to London (taking British citizenship), to New York, and finally to Brazil, where he committed suicide with his wife. New York Review Books has published Zweig's novels The Post-Office Girl and Beware of Pity as well as the novella Chess Story.

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