This book is the final masterpiece by Stefan Zweig, a master of biographical literature, vividly depicting the life and literature of the 19th-century French writer Balzac.
Balzac was a 19th-century genre painter who vividly depicted the turbulent times following the French Revolution, with war, revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and capitalism.
The cold, vulgar, and ugly people who appear in his novels, seething with desire, are the very image of that era that pursued only 'money'.
He was the first writer to comprehensively portray the inner desires of humans and the essence of the era in the industrializing era.
This book depicts in three dimensions and meticulous detail the inner landscape and literary world of a great realist writer who most sensitively reacted to the times and most vividly portrayed the human condition of his time.
The eventful life of Balzac, a man who is not particularly well known, unfolds in an exciting way.