Stefan ZWEIG - One of the last letters of his life.

Stefan ZWEIG (1881.1942)

Autograph letter signed to Count Carnaxide.

One page in-8°, in French, on Paysandu Hotel letterhead in Rio de Janeiro

Rio (1941).

“I will write to you from Petrópolis again.”

Moving letter from Zweig from Brazil, a few months before his suicide.

“My dear friend, excuse me that I cannot give you a manuscript more worthy of a friendship such as yours. But “pazienza” – if I can go back to England again you will have one that will be better. I read again yesterday evening the speech by Lopes Vieira [the Portuguese poet Afonso Lopes Vieira] on the character of Camoes: very beautiful and very interesting! I will write to you from Petrópolis again. This in haste and with great gratitude. Stefan Zweig. »

Fleeing the rise of fascism, Stefan Zweig left Vienna in 1934. In contact since 1932 with Abrahão Koogman, a personality of the Jewish émigré community in Brazil, he visited this country in 1936, then, after settling for a time in England, he made a first real stay in Brazil from August 21, 1940 to January 21, 1941, interrupted by an excursion to Argentina and Uruguay. He then spent a short period in England and the United States, before returning to Brazil in August 1941: he then remained in Petrópolis, except for two stays in Rio in August 1941 and from February 15 to 17, 1942.

The Viscount of Carnaxide, António Batista de Souza Pedroso, represented in Brazil the State Secretariat for National Propaganda of Portugal, directed since its creation in 1933 by a close friend of President António Salazar. He had become friends with Stefan Zweig in 1936, and then rendered him important services: he facilitated his installation in Brazil, organized receptions for him, and obtained visas for America for his first wife.