CAMPODIMELEIn questo periodo sono fortunato, oppure scelgo bene: da un po’ di tempo a questa parte leggo solo bei libri. Non ci sono abituato, e mi piace.Sono frammenti di memoria e riflessioni che Appelfeld (campo di mele in tedesco, la lingua degli assassini di sua madre) deve aver faticato a t...
Fleeing an abusive home, Katerina, a teenage peasant in Ukraine in the 1880s, is taken in by a Jewish family and becomes their housekeeper. Feeling the warmth of family life for the first time and incorporating the family’s customs and rituals into her own Christian observances, Katerina is traum...
The setting is eastern Europe during the Holocaust. This small book sets a powerful mood- it puts you in another world where all that is familiar has come undone and the only real thing at stake is to try to keep body and soul together amidst constant uncertainty. Tzili is a skinny mite of a girl...
Having been blown away by Appelfeld's The Conversion, I bought a few more of his books - All Whom I Have Loved being one of them. It's similar to The Conversion in some ways: a pre-Holocaust Europe setting, anti-Semitism, and a great deal of sadness and death. However, there are many differences ...
Blanca, born Jewish in pre-war Germany, converts to Christianity with the approval of her parents who are themselves alienated from Judaism, in order to marry a caricatured brute named Adolf. When the novel begins Blanca is on the run with her young son after a catastrophic event, going North, go...
She felt Mark’s eyes on her. She lay without moving. The fire had not gone out, which meant that Mark had not slept all night. When she finally opened her eyes it was already morning. Mark asked: “Did you sleep?” The sun rose in the sky and the horizons opened out one after the other until the mi...
Hugo celebrates his twelfth birthday with Mariana. She takes a few swallows from the bottle and announces, “Today you’ve finally reached maturity. Today you’re a man. But not like all other men. You, unlike them, will be a gentleman—generous and loyal to all those who love you. Remember, nature g...