By the 1930s, Austrian writer Stefan Zweig had become the most widely translated living author in the world; his novels, short stories, and biographies were so compelling that they became instant bestsellers. Yet as George Prochnik details in this "unusually subtle, poignant, and honest" biography (NYTBR), Hitler's rise to power drove this celebrated Jewish writer—who had dedicated so much energy to promoting international humanism—into an increasingly suffocating exile. From London to New York City, Zweig and his wife emigrated finally to Petrópolis, Brazil—where, in 1942, they took their own lives.