Right to Heresy

'From Stefan Zweig's book there emerges a new hero for a modern reading public: a true historic character rescued from near oblivion' New York Times

'No one captures the sweep of history like Stefan Zweig' Economist

Every thoughtful human being has to establish the landmarks between freedom and authority

When Sebastian Castellio dared to protest John Calvin's theocratic control of Geneva, he knew his lone voice could never overcome one of Europe's most powerful leaders. His feud with Calvin condemned Castellio to terror, censorship and poverty; his writings to historical oblivion.

Four hundred years later, Stefan Zweig found in Castellio a consoling hero of free-thinking political conscience. Written in 1936, when Zweig had just fled the rise of Nazism, The Right to Heresy is a fierce, emotional essay on despair and hope in the face of authoritarianism.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand picked from around the globe.

Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Between the wars, Zweig was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, Zweig left Austria, and lived in London, Bath and New York - a period during which he produced his most celebrated works: his only novel, Beware of Pity, and his memoir, The World of Yesterday. He eventually settled in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press.