Jean-Christophe Béchet
Petrópolis. Sur les traces de Stefan Zweig is a photographic journey exploring the memory of a city through the figure of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Nestled in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro State, Petrópolis was the author’s final refuge. He went into exile there in 1942, before taking his own life alongside his wife, Lotte Altmann.
Born out of an exploration of the city and the writer’s former home, now a museum, this project offers a contemporary portrait of Petrópolis, shaped by echoes of Zweig’s tragic fate and the ways in which it resonates with the concerns of our time.
At the intersection of documentary photography, homage and literary narrative, this book inaugurates the Traces collection, devoted to places shaped by memory, history or presence.