The homicidal madman
the Stefan Zweig
Synopsis:
The Homicidal Madman (or “Amok”, as Zweig later titled this story) was published in 1922, as part of the volume of short novels entitled Amok. Novels of passion (Hermida Editores, 2023). Today it is among the most famous stories of the Viennese author, and it is one of the most heartbreaking and impressive. A European doctor has been stationed for years in the Dutch colonies of Malaysia. He barely has any contact with other whites, the jungle surrounds him and he can barely endure that soporific environment. One day a mysterious, elegant and very attractive English lady suddenly appears in his office, offering him a tempting amount of money in exchange for an illegal surgical procedure. The doctor, seduced by the beauty of the English woman, conceives a diabolical idea.
Author biography:
Stefan Zweig was born in Vienna in 1881, into a family of the Jewish great bourgeoisie. At barely 20 years old he began to collaborate in the most important newspaper in Vienna, the Neue Freie Presse. He translated Baudelaire and Verlaine. He made great friends with the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren and the French writer Romain Rolland, who would be his literary and moral references. The catastrophe that the First World War meant for Europe strengthened his pacifist and anti-nationalist convictions. He fought to spread the idea of ​​a Europe without borders, united by its cultural and humanist roots.
Source: https://algunoslibrosbuenos.com/el-loco-homicida
