Philippe Sands, George Prochnik and Daria Santini discuss Stefan Zweig's exile in London, where The London Library became a place of refuge.
This event is available to view as a recording until 13 June. Tickets can be purchased below.
‘You have here the best libraries…’
When Stefan Zweig arrived in London in 1934, exiled from his native Vienna by the rising tide of Nazism, he was at the height of his literary career. A novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer, he was one of the most popular and widely translated writers in the world. London wasn’t quite home but he came to love its ‘murky light’, its ‘particular atmosphere’ and, most significantly, he loved its libraries. Zweig joined The London Library in 1936, finding refuge within its labyrinth of books. Before he left for Brazil three years later, he donated many of his own books to the collection.
Joining Philippe Sands, writer, barrister and Zweig fan, are George Prochnik, author of The Impossible Exile, a biography of Zweig, and Daria Santini, author of The Exiles, which explores the lives of the artists, actors and writers who fled the Nazis for London in 1934. Woven through with readings from actor John Hopkins of some of the letters Zweig wrote from London, they discuss his life and work, his years of displacement in the city and the particular condition of what it means to be a writer in exile.
In partnership with Insiders/Outsiders.
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George Prochnik is the author of Heinrich Heine: Writing the Revolution, Stranger in a Strange Land: Searching for Gershom Scholem and Jerusalem and The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World, which received the 2014 National Jewish Book Award for Biography/Memoir. He has written for The New Yorker, New York Times, Bookforum, and Los Angeles Review of Books, and is editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine.
Philippe Sands is Professor of Law at University College London and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers, frequently appearing before international courts, including the International Criminal Court and the World Court in The Hague. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling East West Street, which won multiple awards including the 2017 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize and the 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize and The Ratline, which was published in 2020.
Daria Santini was Lecturer in German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford for fifteen years until 2010. Between 2000 and 2002 she was Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in German Literature at the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universitat in Munich. Since leaving academia, Daria has worked as an independent scholar and writer, specialising in literary studies, cultural history & biography.
John Hopkins is a RADA trained actor who has performed at Shakespeare's Globe, in the West End, and five seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has recorded dozens of books for Audible, and was a series regular in Poldark and Midsomer Murders. In 2020 the Times listed him as one of the "ten best theatre actors in the UK."
Insiders/Outsiders is an ongoing celebration of refugees from Nazi Europe and their contribution to British culture.
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Tickets
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Transcription for this event will be available soon.
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