Ostend - Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, And The Summer Before The Dark is a well-researched historical nonfiction book with the emotional interest of a novel.
This details a time and place I knew nothing about - the summer of 1936, when European intellectuals, writers, and performers gathered in the Belgian coastal resort town of Ostend as Berlin prepares for the Olympics and everything is censored. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig finds himself exiled, albeit in a fourth floor loggia overlooking the waterfront, where he struggles to work. He writes about a world that no longer exists, now the enemy holds all the power. Perhaps his friend Joseph Roth will advise his work, or one of the other drinkers, storytellers, detractors, fighters, or cynics at the Cafe Flore, thrown together by the vagaries of world politics, awaiting a return to their homeland.
Austrian Joseph Roth watches Nazi Germany annex his country, knowing he has seen his world of books and knowledge for the last time. Roth idolizes Zweig, one of the most widely translated writers of literature, his books outselling any German author for his ideals of conscience against power, humanism, tolerance, and reason. Immediately the Nazis took power, all books by Zweig and Roth were burned, their houses searched, assets seized, manuscripts destroyed, their work banned from publication.
Irmgard Keun is beyond happy to have escaped 'Naziland', leaving behind a husband and lover. Not Jewish, but all her books are banned for being too modern. Brilliant and witty, she captivates all around her as a fiery political creature. She had never met a man with the magnetism of Roth at the Cafe Flore, where he is keen to tell stories no one knows are made up or real, and the two share an unlikely romance.
Other emigres include Herman Jesten, the uncrowned king of emigre society - his affectionate book appeared after the war, My Friends The Poets; Egon Erwin Kisch empowering fellow Communist fighters against fascism; Journalist Arthur Koestler, who will write about all this later.
This reads like a novel as Weidermann details their histories on a human level. My edition ends with a photograph of the friends Zweig and Roth, adding a personal touch to the men we have just met.
Wes Anderson credits Zweig and his novels as inspiration for his film The Grand Budapest Hotel, with actors Tom Wilkinson and Jude Law playing 'Zweig' at different ages, and Ralph Fiennes as the concierge based on 'Zweig'. A young girl visits a shrine to The Author (Zweig), celebrated as a National Treasure.
Volker Weidermann is a German writer and literary critic.
2014 (translated 2016) / Hardcover /173 pages
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