In the autumn of his days, a distinguished privy councillor in central Germany contemplates his past, looking back at the key moments of his life. A reluctant and indolent student, he recalls the chance meeting with a reclusive professor and his boyish wife which lead to his sharing their lodgings. In a flash of revelation, the pro-fessor unlocks his thirst for knowledge and an ambiguous and close friendship is formed. But the professor harbors a dark secret which changes and scars both men forever.

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, a member of a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied Philosophy and Literature in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, playwright and librettist, then as a biographer and librettist. His stories and novellas were collected in 1934.

Zweig travelled widely throughout Europe as well as to the Far East and the Americas. He lived in Salzburg between the wars and enjoyed literary fame. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil where, in 1942, he and his second wife Lotte, having been found dead in bed in an apparent double suicide, were given a State funeral.