Behind the Door (A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book) - Softcover

Bassani, Giorgio

3.77

572 ratings by Goodreads

9780156116855: Behind the Door (A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156116855 ISBN 13: 9780156116855

Publisher: Harvest Books, 1976

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A novel about a young Jewish boy's corruption by an opportunistic newcomer to his high school in Ferrara, Italy. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book.

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Review:

Giorgio Bassani is one of the great witnesses of this century, and one of its great artists (Guardian)

Powerful new translations . . . Bassani began as a poet, and McKendrick's redelivery of this taut uncompromising fiction reveals resonance and generosity (Ali Smith)

No one else writes about time like this. Bassani is deeply unsettling and yet a joy to read. (David Herman Jewish Chronicle)

From the Back Cover:

Translated by Jamie McKendrick

'It was useless to think I'd ever be able to throw open the door behind which I was yet again hiding ... Not now. Not ever.'

School is a place of unspoken hierarchies and rivalries for a young teenage boy growing up in the provincial town of Ferrara. But as the everyday classroom and playground dramas are played out, they begin to reflect the disturbing undertones of 1930s Italy, and the narrator realizes that being Jewish means he will always be excluded. The fourth book in Bassani's Romanzo di Ferrara cycle, Behind the Door is a luminous portrayal of childhood friendship and the loss of innocence.

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