Stefanie Zweig
20th and 21st-century German writer
Who was Stefanie Zweig?
Stefanie Zweig (19 September 1932 – 25 April 2014) was a German Jewish writer and journalist. The novel is based on her early life in Kenya, where her family had fled to escape persecution in Nazi Germany. Zweig was born in Leobschütz, Germany (now Głubczyce, Poland). Her books have sold more than seven million copies, and have been translated into fifteen languages. She is not related to the Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig [1881-1942]. She and her parents, being Jewish, fled to Africa in 1938 to escape persecution in Nazi Germany. They went from a prosperous urban life in Breslau (now Wrocław) to a poor farm in Kenya; Zweig was five years old. Paul Vitello writes in his obituary that, "The parents endured grinding work and bouts of depression. Stefanie, who had been withdrawn, blossomed into a venturesome, Swahili-speaking teenager.
Historical significance
She is best known for her autobiographical novel, Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) (1995), which was a bestseller in Germany. The film adaptation of the novel (2001) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.