Stefan Zweig, the master of peeking into the depths of the human soul, this time turns his gaze to a crucial moment in the adolescence of Edgar, an Austrian-Jewish boy who goes on a short vacation with his mother in the mountains, outside of Vienna. There he is caught in an unusual whirlwind of emotions, which accelerates his entry into the secret world of the greats, challenges everything he knew about the world and himself, and also involves him in several adventures and relationships the likes of which he never imagined. Zweig touches the adolescent's soul with bare hands, in the mechanisms of betrayal, concealment, shame, regret and reconciliation, with an explicit nod to psychoanalysis: to his friend Sigmund Freud. The result is a masterful chamber novella, dizzying in its plot and wise in its insights. A Burning Secret stands in a row with 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman, Letter from an Anonymous Person and Fear, novellas that were published in "Nine Souls" in the wonderful translation of Harel Keen. In many ways, this book completes a body of work by Zweig, in which several complex figures stand in a picturesque setting and engage in an intimate struggle to define subjectivity.