Stefan Zweig is a classic of Austrian literature, the author of magnificent psychological short stories and fictionalized biographies, translated into all languages of the world. “The Fight against Madness” is perhaps one of Zweig’s most emotional, vivid and poetic books, which gives portraits of three literary artists who ended their lives in “deadly intoxication of feelings.” “Unconnected with their era, not understood by their generation, sparkling like a meteorite, they rush into the night of their destiny. They themselves do not know about their path, about their mission, for their path is from infinity and into infinity.” Taking a closer look at the lives and works of Hölderlin, Kleist and Nietzsche, the author discovers something in common in their destinies: a fatal demonic essence, which, while endowing its charges with the magical gift of speech, at the same time generates in them an irresistible craving for self-destruction.