the letter of an unknown
Letter from a Stranger is a short novella in letter form by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig , first published in 1922. The date of origin is unknown.
content
The framework begins with a writer returning to his hometown Vienna after a mountain vacation. In his mail he finds a long letter without a return address, in which a woman he does not know describes her life, which was determined by her unrequited love for him.
As a thirteen-year-old, lonely girl, she falls madly in love with the reader who lives with her in the same apartment building. The love continues, even when she and her mother move from Vienna to Innsbruck. At the age of 18 she used her first opportunity to return to Vienna and went to the writer's house every day to observe him until he finally spoke to her. He can't remember her, but shows interest in her and invites her to dinner. When he asks the girl to come home afterwards, they spend the night together. This is repeated two more times, until the writer sets off on a trip and does not ask any more about her after his return.
The three nights spent together resulted in a common child who raised the woman who had meanwhile become a woman alone. In order to enable her son to have the life she wants for him, she earns her living as a courtesan and has various relationships with men of the Viennese upper class who pay her. A few years later she meets the writer again in a nightclub. He has already heard of their services and asks for a night for money. She agrees in the hope that he will recognize her again. But when she finds no trace of memory in him, she leaves his apartment the next morning, angry and disappointed. When her child dies, she writes a letter to the writer in which she tells him her story. At the end of the letter, she indicates that she is probably also ill. In any case, he would not receive the letter until after her death.
The writer, overwhelmed by the content of the letter, tries to reconstruct the various encounters with the woman, but can only remember fragments (“like in a dream”).
book
Single issues
- The letter from a stranger , Lehmannsche Verlagbuchhandlung (German poet manuscripts, Volume 13, edited by Hanns Martin Elster), Dresden 1922
- The letter of an unknown. Story , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-596-13024-5
In collective editions
- Amok. Novellas of a Passion , Insel, Leipzig 1922
- Letter from a stranger , The wedding of Lyons , The gunman . Drei Erzählungen, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-10-097036-5
- Meisternovellen , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 978-3-596-14991-9
Audio book
- Letter from a stranger , Deutsche Grammophon 1963, read by Ruth Leuwerik and Helmut Käutner
- Letter from a stranger , audio book Hamburg 2009, unabridged reading with Felix von Manteuffel and Leslie Malton , ISBN 978-3-89903-612-1
radio play
- Stefan Zweig: Letter from a stranger. Director: Martin Engler , Contributors: Linda Olsansky , 53 min, RBB 2012.
Film adaptations
- In 1948 the most famous film adaptation by Max Ophüls appeared with the title Letter from a Stranger . Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan played the leading roles in the film, which is still highly regarded by critics .
- In 2001 the French director Jacques Deray filmed the novella for television; in the leading roles Irène Jacob , Christopher Thompson, Karlheinz Hackl and Joachim Bißmeier .
- In 2004, the Chinese director Xu Jinglei made another film adaptation under the title Yi ge mosheng nüren de laixin .
theatre
The play The Secret of a Stranger by Christopher Hampton (German translation by Daniel Kehlmann , world premiere at the Theater in der Josefstadt in the 2020/21 season) is based on Zweig's novella Letter to a Stranger .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ World premiere: “The secret of a stranger” by Christopher Hampton based on Stefan Zweig, Theater in der Josefstadt Vienna. In: theaterkompass.de. March 7, 2020, accessed March 9, 2020 .
- ↑ Secret of a Stranger. In: josefstadt.org. Retrieved March 11, 2020 .