Journal of Austrian Studies

Abstract:

It is well known that Stefan Zweig had a passion for Brazil, in particular for Rio de Janeiro. He was much more reserved, however, about Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo. Yet his visit to the Butantan snake institute in São Paulo was not inconsequential. This article shows that the lukewarm Brazilian reception of Zweig’s book Brasilien: Ein Land der Zukunft(1941) may in part be attributed to his failure to write more enthusiastically about Butantan and to show a better understanding of the importance of the scientific achievements by the institute’s founder, Vital Brazil, to the nation’s self-consciousness. Zweig’s interest in a flask with a high concentration of snake venom resonates with the many mentions of poison in his work and anticipates his future death by suicide. The article also suggests a different interpretation of Zweig’s suicide as a (potential) form of regeneration rather than resignation.