Abstract
Popular novels not only reflect the historical accumulation and experience of humanity, but also shed light on the future, and because of this feature, they attract people from almost all over the world. In popular novels that have been incorporated into popular culture, which significantly directs individual and social life practices in modern times, writers deal with the themes of religion, happiness and search for meaning, sometimes as an existential pain experienced by the heroes of the novel, and sometimes in the context of criticism or dilemmas of modernity. Stefan Zweig, one of the most popular names in our country with his novels, also directly or indirectly refers to the aforementioned themes in his works. In this article, which investigates how the themes of religion, happiness and search for meaning are examined in the sociological context in Stefan Zweig’s works, document analysis, one of the qualitative research techniques, is used. This article, which includes thirty-one of Zweig’s works translated into Turkish, aims to contribute to the literature by considering Zweig’s novels from the perspective of sociology of religion. The main motivation of this article is the lack of research on sociology of religion specific to novels that have gained global popularity, and the lack of a study focusing directly on Zweig within the framework of this field. As a result, it has been reached the idea that Zweig analyzes the dilemmas of modern man, which he frequently mentions in his novels, and that his perspective related to religion, happiness and search for meaning has undergone changes in parallel with his own life story.