Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

During the sixth meeting of leaders of BRICS countries at Fortaleza, Brazil, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech, in which he mentioned a bestseller, Brazil: A Land of the Future, which envisions happy prospects for human civilization.

The book was authored by Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig and first published in 1941.

In 1936, Zweig visited Brazil for the first time, on his way to a P.E.N. Club meeting in Buenos Aires. Just like every other European in that era, he walked into the country with a sense of civilizational superiority.

Europe was on the verge of war. As a Jewish writer, he had wisely fled Austria after Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, and his works were banned in Germany.

In Brazil, what Zweig saw was the harmonious coexistence of different ethnic groups, religions, and beliefs, along with the comforts and stability of ordinary life.

He reflected upon European civilization in comparison, and raised a question: "What can we do to make it possible for human beings to live peacefully together, despite all the differences of race, class, color, religion, and creed?"

Zweig believed he found the answer in Brazil, "So one of our greatest hopes for future civilization and peace in our world, which has been destroyed by hatred and madness, rests on the existence of Brazil, whose desires are aimed exclusively at pacific development."

In August 1940, Zweig and his wife left New York and settled down in Petrópolis, which is close to Rio de Janeiro. Europe, at that time, was deeply trapped in the hell of war. And in February 1942, Zweig and his wife were found dead in an apartment. Both committed suicide.

But why did Zweig choose suicide after he arrived at what he believed the land of the future for human civilization? We may find some explanations in his suicide note and his autobiography, The World of Yesterday.

If Brazil: A Land of the Future can be seen as his aspirations for the future, this biography is a final farewell to Europe.

With his own experiences, Zweig described how a dream palace of peace shaded off its past glory and walked toward devastation step by step.

Peaceful life in Brazil worsened his despair toward the civilizational decline of his homeland. In his suicide note, Zweig wrote, "I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labor meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on Earth."

But, he noted, "My love for the country increased from day to day, and nowhere else would I have preferred to build up my new existence, the world of my own language having disappeared from me and my spiritual home, Europe, having destroyed itself."

Zweig didn't have chance to see the end of WWII, but from the comparison between Europe and Brazil, he felt that a great turn would emerge in the world's history of civilization.

It was right after the great victory of the World Anti-Fascist War that a batch of developing countries realized the dream of independence, freedom and self-reliance.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the eruption of WWI. Some Western scholars use the European dynamics before WWI to analyze today's Asia. They still carry a sense of civilizational superiority and warn people that China's rise will break the balance of power in Asia and may even trigger war.

But they forget that there is a fundamental mistake in such comparisons - the road map of European history does not apply to today's Asia.

In modern times, European civilization experienced two periods of darkness, but this doesn't mean global civilization cannot escape from darkness. Zweig understood this more than seven decades ago.

Today's Asia has the wisdom, capacity and courage to find a civilizational development path which surpasses Europe and surpasses war. And through cooperation, BRICS countries can build a more solid foundation for future peaceful development.

In his speech, Xi depicted the common expectation of people in BRICS countries: to become a land of the future characterized by prosperity, wealth, democracy and civilization, and to create a future of more diverse global economic growth and more democratic international relations.

The author is a senior editor with People's Daily. He is now stationed in Brazil. dinggang@globaltimes.com.cn. Follow him on Twitter at @dinggangchina