Stefan Zweig, the Austrian novelist and biographer, chose Petrópolis as his place of exile after fleeing Europe in 1941. He called Brazil a "Land of the Future" and found in Petrópolis a gentle, cultivated city that reminded him of home. The small house on Rua Gonçalves Dias where he spent his final months is now preserved as a museum.
The collection includes his personal library, manuscripts, correspondence, and the original typewriter on which he worked. The house has been carefully maintained to suggest occupation rather than abandonment. Zweig's final published work, "The World of Yesterday," a memoir of pre-war Europe, was written largely in this room. The museum is small but affecting, and often overlooked by visitors focused on the Imperial centre.