Blooms of Darkness - Softcover

Aharon Appelfeld

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184688148X ISBN 13: 9781846881480

Publisher: Alma Books Ltd, 2011

Synopsis

The ghetto in which the Jews have been confined is being liquidated by the Nazis, and eleven-year-old Hugo is brought by his mother to the local brothel, where one of the prostitutes has agreed to hide him. Mariana is a bitterly unhappy woman who hates what she has done to her life, and night after night Hugo sits in her closet and listens uncomprehendingly as she rages at the Nazi soldiers who come and go. When she s not mired in self-loathing, Mariana is fiercely protective of the bewildered, painfully polite young boy. And Hugo becomes protective of Mariana, too, trying to make her laugh when she is depressed, soothing her physical and mental agony with cold compresses. As the memories of his family and friends grow dim, Hugo falls in love with Mariana. And as her life spirals downwards, Mariana reaches out for consolation to the adoring boy who is on the cusp of manhood. Multi-award-winning writer Aharon Appelfeld once again crafts out of the depths of unfathomable tragedy a renewal of life and a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.

About this title

Review:

'Aharon Appelfeld is fiction s foremost chronicler of the Holocaust. The stories he tells, as here in Blooms of Darkness, are small, intimate, and quietly narrated and yet are transfused into searing works of art by Appelfeld s profound understanding of loss, pain, cruelty, and grief.' -- Philip Roth

'With short, simple sentences and a brisk pace, the effect of this novel is reminiscent of a film, except that a film would place greater emphasis on dramatic incident and the horror of the situation. As readers, we are left to reflect on such matters for ourselves.' -- East-West Review

'The parents' dilemma of how to live with horror and what to tell the children; Hugo's inexorable forgetting; the inability to understand what you fear [...] all are caught in Appelfeld's glancing, delicate prose.' --The Independent

About the Author:

Aharon Appelfeld is the author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, including Badenheim 1939, Tzili, The Iron Tracks (winner of the National Jewish Book Award), and The Story of a Life (winner of the Prix Médicis Étranger). Other honors he has received include the Giovanni Bocaccio Literary Prize, the Nelly Sachs Prize, the Israel Prize, the Bialik Prize, and the MLA Commonwealth Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alma Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 184688148X
• ISBN 13: 9781846881480
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300