> Les derniers jours de Stefan Zweig, de Laurent SEKSIK (Flammarion, 2010)
Se reporter au compte rendu de Monique GOSSELIN, Brossard
In: (2010). Compte rendu de [Coups de coeur à partager]. Entre les lignes, 7 (1), p. 8–8… ; (en ligne),
URL : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/62192ac

Laurent Seksik's novel 'The Last Days' follows the final months in the life of the great writer Stefan Zweig, who fled Austria when the Nazis came to power in neighbouring Germany, and who, in 1942, committed suicide along with his wife Lotte.

'The Last Days' is a tremendously moving book. It interweaves fact and fiction, makes real characters out of Zweig, his wife, and their friends, and brings the crushing reality of the Holocaust down on the reader in a most shocking way.

In short, this book is a masterpiece, written with empathy but a critical eye - this is no hagiography of the master writer - and with a novelistic touch all its own. ( )

> Voir un extrait : https://books.google.fr/books?id=esAwBgAAQBAJ&hl=fr&printsec=frontcover&...

> Par Aurélia Vertaldi (Le Figaro) : Stefan Zweig au cœur de la tempête
17/02/2012 ... LA BD - Magistralement adapté du roman de Laurent Seksik, Les derniers jours de Stefan Zweig évoque la fuite éperdue de l'écrivain dévoré par les démons du nazisme et ses propres tourments intérieurs.
... C'est sans conteste l'un des albums importants du ce début d'année BD. Documenté, trapu sur le plan historique et fluide sur le plan narratif, Les derniers jours de Stefan Zweig de Seksik et Sorel impressionne d'emblée par son ambition littéraire associée à l'élégance du trait de Guillaume Sorel ...

This is a book about the last months in the lives of Stefan Zweig and his second wife, Lotte. It is factually based but written as fiction - from a subjective point of view - that gets into the minds of both characters. It is clear, precise and cerebral. It is also unremittingly sad. The only light comes in as negative space - through the reader's sense of the magnitude of the characters mistake - their misjudgment of circumstances and the tragedy of beauty cut short. ( )

Oddly written book (but that might be a translation problem) that was a little too simplistic. I found myself noticing how often sentences started in the same way. (For example, 'He had moved … He had gone … He had put … He'd hoped. The beginning of the next paragraph is 'He had put'. For me, this repetition had a distancing effect.) Two of the main characters die in the end, but I felt little sympathy for them (as characters). The repetition problem and Seksik's use of multiple viewpoints may have had something to do with this. ( )