The Post Office Girl
 | |
| Author | Stefan Zweig |
|---|---|
| Original title | Rausch der Verwandlung |
| Translator | Joel Rotenberg |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Publisher | S. Fischer Verlag |
Publication date | 1982 |
Published in English | 2008 |
| Pages | 328 |
| ISBN | 3-10-097054-3 |
The Post Office Girl (German: Rausch der Verwandlung, which roughly means The Intoxication of Transformation) is a novel by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. It tells the story of Christine Hoflehner, a female post-office clerk in poverty-stricken Vienna, Austria-Hungary, following World War I. The book was published posthumously in 1982.
Reception
Lorna Bradbury of The Daily Telegraph wrote in 2009: "The Post Office Girl is a fine novel – and an excellent place to start if you are new to this great Austrian novelist. It is a powerful social history, describing in moving detail the social impact of the First World War, and the extreme poverty in which so many people were forced to live. ... Zweig succeeded in taking the most complex concepts of psychoanalysis and bringing them vividly to life."[1] John Banville reviewed the book in The Guardian: "The Post Office Girl is fierce, sad, moving and, ultimately, frightening. True, it is over-written – Simenon would have done it better, in half the space – but it is also hypnotic in its downward spiral into tragedy."[2]
In popular culture
Wes Anderson admitted to basing The Grand Budapest Hotel on The Post Office Girl and Beware of Pity.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ Bradbury, Lorna (2009-02-06). "The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig – review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
- ↑ Banville, John (2009-02-28). "Ruined souls". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
- ↑ "'I stole from Stefan Zweig': Wes Anderson on the author who inspired his latest movie". Retrieved 27 June 2016.