October News and Highlights

Letter from New York City October 2025 Dear Readers, The busy literary season marches on for NYRB this month with lots of new books and reissues, including a debut novel by French train-driver-turned-writer Mattia Filice, newly translated work by Eileen Chang, and another cult classic by Robert Glück. We also have another long lineup of events in October. There are in-person and online gatherings celebrating Mrs. Dalloway, Mort Walker, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Rainer Maria Rilke, Manuel Mujica Lainez, Hothead Paisan, Dante, and many, many others. Scroll down for more information on all of this, plus a long look at a beloved work of Austrian literature and a sneak peek at a new illustrated children's book from Chen Jiang Hong. Happy reading, The NYRB Staff   Hidden Gems: The Post-Office Girl B-sides and other lesser-known books from the NYRB Classics Series Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's unfinished novel The Post-Office Girl is one of the most beloved "sleeper hits" in the NYRB Classics series, a true gem among gems to those who discover Zweig's work. Though a major literary celebrity in his day and perennially popular in certain parts of Europe, Zweig was all but forgotten by English-language readers by the late 20th century. His beguiling stories about pre–World War II Austria have since found a new generation of fans, though, thanks in part to reissues of English translations of his work and, more recently, some surprising appreciation by Hollywood. While his more polished books like Beware of Pity and the memoir The World of Yesterday are perhaps the most popular, it is The Post-Office Girl that seems to engender a special kind of affection in readers of Zweig. Equal parts dreamy fantasy and despairing nightmare, the book encapsulates Zweig's ability to spin tales that are as charming as they are disturbing, a balancing act reflected in Zweig's own life.  Zweig, standing, with his brother Alfred in Vienna, 1900. The cover of Zweig's first book, a poetry collection titled Silberne Saiten (Strings of Silver) 1901 Born in Vienna in 1881 to wealthy Jewish parents, Zweig was drawn to art and literature from a young age. He started submitting poems and articles to literary journals while still in his early teens, and corresponded with famous writers. He published his first book, a collection of poems, when he was barely twenty years old, while still at university. After studying philosophy at university, he traveled widely over Europe, moving between Berlin, Paris, and Brussels. On his travels, Zweig made the acquaintance of some of the most famous artists and writers of his time, including Auguste Rodin, Rainer Maria Rilke, Romain Rolland, and W.B. Yeats, encounters that influenced him greatly. (Once, after conversing with Rilke, Zweig wrote that "one was incapable of any vulgarity for hours or even days.") It was during these itinerant years that Zweig began to write fiction in earnest, mainly novellas, many of which became immediately popular. As for so many European artists, the advent of World War I marked a sharp turning point for Zweig both personally and professionally. A patriotic Austrian, Zweig, at first, supported the war. However, after being conscripted to serve in the archives of the Austrian Ministry of War, Zweig came face to face with the horrors of the conflict and underwent a change of heart. He wrote an anti-war play titled Jeremiah, which was admired by Thomas Mann (an author who, alas, would later dismiss Zweig's talent as "mediocre"). Embracing his newfound pacifism, Zweig moved to Switzerland, where he stayed until almost the end of the war. He would remain a pacifist and yearn for the unification of Europe for the rest of his life. A 1929 poster for a production of Zweig's play Jeremiah in Palestine. Early editions of Zweig's novels Angst, Amok, and Confusion (or Confusion of Feelings) The interwar period would prove to be Zweig's most productive and successful years. Just before the end of World War I, Zweig settled in Salzburg where he would write stories rife with emotional tension and social crises. It was during this time that Zweig would pen some of what would become his most famous works, including the novels Fear, Amok, and Confusion. The books sold well and Zweig became so famous that he could barely leave his house without being recognized by fans. Zweig's writing was not universally acclaimed, however. Many of his literary peers dismissed Zweig's stories as "railway carriage reading," superficial, predictable, and formulaic, the airport fiction of its day. It is not known whether such criticism bothered Zweig. In any case, he didn't stop writing. It wasn't until the mid-1930s that Zweig would face the ultimate challenge to his work—the rise of Nazism.  A copy of Zweig's novel Amok that survived burning by the Nazis A playbill for the world premiere of Strauss's opera Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman) in 1935. Stefan Zweig, who grew up in a completely secular family, once  noted that, as a young man, he never "experienced the slightest suppression or indignity as a Jew." Hitler's rise to power and the establishment of the Ständestaat government in Austria, however, changed everything. Due to both regimes' racist agendas, Zweig and his work were suddenly under attack. By 1933, the Hitler Youth were already burning Zweig's books. The most infamous incident of prejudice against Zweig occurred when Richard Strauss, an acquaintance of Zweig, asked the author to write the libretto to his new opera, Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Woman). The Nazi press demanded the production of the opera be cancelled because Zweig had been involved. Strauss refused to withdraw and even demanded Zweig be credited on the performance bill. However, the Gestapo intercepted a letter from Strauss to Zweig in which the composer criticized the Nazi regime and his own role in it. The letter was shown to Hitler and, after only three performances in 1935, the opera was banned.  Zweig's home in Petrópolis, Brazil, now known as Casa Stefan Zweig Before the banning of Strauss's opera, Zweig fled to England. It was during this dark period of the late 1930s that Zweig wrote his novel Beware of Pity. Zweig, feeling that it would be safer to put more distance between himself and the Nazis, crossed the Atlantic with his second wife Lotte in 1940. They spent time as guests of Yale University and lived in Ossining, NY, in a rented home before making their final journey south, to Brazil. It was in their house in the mountain village of Petrópolis that Zweig wrote his last masterpieces, among them his autobiography The World of Yesterday, Chess Story, and The Post-Office Girl.  Stefan and Lotte Zweig A shot from Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel featuring the titular establishment In The Post-Office Girl, originally titled Rausch der Verwandlung (roughly, The Intoxication of Transformation), Zweig plays with themes that fascinated him throughout his career: high society, characters confronted with social/ethical dilemmas, and the transformation of Europe by World War I. The story follows Christine, a poor public servant who works at a post office and has lost nearly everything in the war, including most of her family. When she is invited to spend a week with her wealthy aunt in a posh Alpine hotel, the depressed young woman is awakened to the possibilities of life and her own beauty. She is dressed in luxurious clothing, eats fine food, and enjoys the attentions of the the hotel's wealthy guests. Zweig's transporting scenes depicting the luxurious world of the mountain resort, some of the most memorable in the book, served as direct inspiration for Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, which also features primary characters with tragic, humble backgrounds. The world of the hotel in both the movie and the novel are cast as the encapsulation of a bygone era, one defined by beauty, civility, and order—the "world of yesterday" that Zweig wrote about in his memoir. As Zweig well knew, that world was doomed to destruction.  Original 1982 first edition of Rausch der Verwandlung, retitled in English as The Post-Office Girl. Halfway through The Post-Office Girl, Zweig's novel takes a dark turn. When word of Christine's lower-class background gets out among the hotel's upper-crust guests, Christine's aunt, fearing for her own reputation, sends her young charge home. Christine, now painfully aware of just how desolate her life is, longs for escape. She befriends the young veteran Ferdinand, a similarly disenfranchised victim of the war. Together the two plot to leave their hellish realities behind, willing to go to more and more extreme measures to do so. The novel ends abruptly, unfinished by Zweig. Like Christine, Zweig  embraced a radical method for escaping his own nightmarish reality. Believing that there was little hope for the world from which they came, Zweig and his wife took their own lives in February 1942, leaving The Post-Office Girl incomplete. Zweig was sixty years old. Casa Stefan Zweig, the author's last home in Petrópolis, Brazil, now a museum and monument to its famous resident Despite coming to a tragic end, Zweig has enjoyed a rather illustrious afterlife and his stories have served as inspiration for other artists, writers, and filmmakers. Zweig's novella Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman was adapted for the screen four times, including a 1961 adaptation starring Ingrid Bergman and Rip Torn. The Post-Office Girl, published posthumously in 1982, was well-received and even adapted into a German miniseries a few years after it came out. (English director Terence Davies had also planned to adapt The Post-Office Girl into a film before his death in 2023). Wes Anderson's emphatic acknowledgement of Zweig's influence on the conception of The Grand Budapest Hotel has also helped the author find a new generation of readers. In this sense, the dreamy world of pre-war Europe that Zweig conjured up in his stories, both romanticized and mourned, lives on.  For the next few days, The Post-Office Girl will be 25% off on our website.  BUY THE BOOK   A Fiery Adventure for Kids This month, NYRB Kids publishes a second picture book by Chinese-French author Chen Jiang Hong. Dragon Flower, much like The Tiger Prince, is inspired by Chinese folk tales. The story is about a little girl, Mae, who hopes to find a magical flower that can cure her mother, who is terribly sick. The only catch: the flower is guarded by a fierce dragon. Chen Jiang Hong bring's Mae's thrilling and moving story to life with rich illustrations inspired by traditional Chinese painting. We thought we would share an inside look from this special book. Take a peek below.  Dragon Flower is available now on our website.    Vincenzo Latronico and Meghan Daum Win the Tom Wolfe Prizes for Fiction and Reportage Hearty congratulations to Vincenzo Latronico and Meghan Daum who have won the inaugural AIr Mail Tom Wolfe Prizes for Fiction and Reportage, respectively. Named for the godfather of New Journalism, the prizes are meant to honor writers who reflect the namesake's "wryness, imagination, and flair." Latronico is the author of Perfection, published by New York Review Books.  Daum is the author of several books, the most recent being The Catastrophe Hour, published by Notting Hill Editions. From the citation: Everybody, everybody everywhere, has his own movie going, his own scenario, and everybody is acting his movie out like mad, only most people don’t know that is what they’re trapped by, their little script.” Tom Wolfe wrote this more than half a century ago, in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Since then, the world has expanded and splintered and niche-ified itself in ways even Wolfe—who was certainly the leading man in his own movie, strolling down Madison Avenue in a white three-piece suit and Homburg hat as the culture wars of the 60s raged on—might not have imagined. The inaugural AIR MAIL prizes for fiction and reportage, awarded to two of the year’s most promising authors, were born out of a desire to establish some semblance of togetherness in this singularly isolating age. Congratulations, Vincenzo and Meghan!    Upcoming Events Monday, October 6, 7pm ET at Boston Comic Arts Foundation, Somerville, MA: Diane DiMassa discusses her collection Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist with Joel Christian Gill for the Picture + Panel October Lecture at BCAF. Register here.  Wednesday, October 8, 7pm ET at Book Culture, NYC (W. 112th St location): a celebration of the new NYRB Classics edition of Mrs. Dalloway with editor Edward Mendelson and biographer Francesca Wade. Register here.  Thursday, October 9, 7pm ET at Community Bookstore, Brooklyn: Álvaro Enrigue, Samuel Rutter, and Xita Rubert discuss Manuel Mujica Lainez's Bomarzo. Register here.  Thursday, October 16, 5pm ET on Zoom: D. M. Black discusses his new translation of Dante Alighieri's Paradiso with Edward Mendelson. Register here.  Thursday, October 16, 7pm ET at McNally Jackson Seaport, NYC: Vincenzo Latronico discusses his novel Perfection with Tony Tulathimutte. Register here.  Monday, October 20, 7pm PT at Third Place Books (Seward Park location), Seattle, WA: Robert Glück discusses his novel Jack the Modernist with Miranda Mellis, author of Crocosmia. RSVP here.  Wednesday October 22, 4:30pm ET at Yale University, New Haven, CT: Peter Cole discusses his new translations of Hayim Nahman Bialik in On the Slaughter with Robyn Creswell and Eliyahu Stern at the Yale Department of Comparative Literature. More info here.  Wednesday, October 22, 6:30pm ET at the Society of Illustrators, NYC: Brian Walker and Tim Dumas discuss two new books celebrating Mort Walker, including the NYR Comics title The Lexicon of Comicana. Tickets available here.  Sunday, October 26, 4pm PT at Et. al. Gallery, San Francisco, CA: a celebration of the reissue of Jack the Modernist by Robert Glück with Small Press Traffic. Glück will read from and sign copies of the book. More info here.   Wednesday, October 29, 7pm ET at Community Bookstore, Brooklyn: Geoffrey Lehmann discusses his new translations of Rainer Maria Rilke in Fifty Poems with NYRB editorial director Edwin Frank. Register here.  Thursday, October 30, 12pm ET at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, NYC: Robert Chandler discusses Vasily Grossman's WWII combat journalism with moderator Mark Lipovetsky. More info here.    October with Thoreau Our monthly foray into Henry David Thoreau's The Journal: 1837–1861. This month, we have an entries from October 1857. Thoreau was forty, observing the harvest and lamenting the love of art over nature. Oct. 9. It has come to this,—that the lover of art is one, and the lover of nature another, though true art is but the expression of our love of nature. It is monstrous when one cares but little about trees but much about Corinthian columns, and yet this is exceedingly common. Oct. 10. You see now in sprout-lands young scarlet oaks of every degree of brightness from green to dark scarlet. It is a beautifully formed leaf, with its broad, free, open sinuses,—worthy to be copied in sculpture. A very agreeable form, a bold, deep scallop, as if the material were cheap. Like tracery. Oct. 11. This is the seventh day of glorious weather. Perhaps these might be called Harvest Days. Within the week most of the apples have been gathered; potatoes are being dug; corn is still left in the fields, though the stalks are being carried in. Others are ditching and getting out mud and cutting up bushes along fences,—what is called “brushing up,”—burning brush, etc. These are cricket days. Painting: George Inness, Harvest Time, 1864.   October Books DRIVER by Mattia Filice GINSTER WRITTEN BY HIMSELF by Siegfried Kracauer IDIOCY by Pierre Guyotat JACK THE MODERNIST by Robert Glück TIME TUNNEL STORIES AND ESSAYS by Eileen Chang FIFTY POEMS by Rainer Maria Rilke ON THE SLAUGHTER by Hayim Nahman Bialik DRAGON FLOWER by Chen Jiang Hong HE WAS THERE FROM THE DAY WE MOVED IN by Rhoda Levine illustrated by Edward Gorey THREE LADIES BESIDE THE SEA by Rhoda Levine illustrated by Edward Gorey THE LEUCOTHEA DIALOGUES by Cesare Pavese Archipelago Books NEEDLE'S EYE by Wiesław Myśliwski Archipelago Books ONE, NONE, AND A HUNDRED GRAND by Luigi Pirandello Archipelago Books SAY FIRE by Selma Asotić Archipelago Books   The October selection of the NYRB Classics Book Club is The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym. If you join the NYRB Classics Book Club by Wednesday, October 15, The Sweet Dove Died will be your first selection.    In the Press "In clashing against our romanticized image of the Renaissance as a time of scientific, historical, religious, and spiritual revelations, Bomarzo ungilds it, leaving us with a pyrite time of plenty built on sanctimony, privilege, and a timely inability to meet the times—which is to say: it sounds terribly familiar." —Justin Goodman, in Asymptote on Bomarzo by Manuel Mujica Lainez "Barbara Pym’s social comedies are pure post-war delights. The English writer close read middle-class village life in her tightly constructed novels of manners, and reclaimed “spinsterhood” for glorious loners everywhere." —Brittany Allen, in Literary Hub on The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym "These translations flow toward what nourishes love and life, offering spiritual sustenance for our fractured present." —Mina Raminsabet, in World Literature Today on Water by Rumi   Image at top of newsletter: from Three Ladies Beside the Sea by Rhoda Levine, illustrated by Edward Gorey   You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from NYRB. You can choose the types of mailings you wish to receive: Update preferences     New York Review Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016 Not a subscriber? Sign up for our newsletter here. Unsubscribe