Aharon Appelfeld Knihy

Dve novely - Cili a Katerina - tvoria knihu Dva osudy izraelského spisovateľa Aharona Appelfelda. Ich protagonistkami sú dve mladé ženy (Židovka a Rusínka) a dejiskom príbehov je širšia oblasť Bukoviny, územia patriaceho v dobe príbehu, teda cez druhú svetovú vojnu, k Rumunsku (dnes patrí Ukrajine). Nepredstieram, že som zvestovateľ, kronikár vojny či vševedko. Dejiny sú podľa mňa iba pokrmom pre literatúru. A literatúra, to je prítomnosť, čo trvá nie v novinárskom zmysle, ale ako pokus dostať čas do pokračujúcej prítomnosti. Kedykoľvek hovoríš o tých časoch, zmocňuje sa ťa pocit, že to všetko je neuveriteľné. Opisuješ, čo sa stalo, no zároveň neveríš, že čosi také sa mohlo stať práve tebe. Nepoznám chvíľu, keď by som sa za niečo väčšmi hanbil.

Dvě novely, ve kterých autor rozvíjí podivné psychologické drama lidí předválečného Rakouska, kteří se postupně nalézají v absurdním světě, na nějž nelze reagovat zcela normálně.

HONOR 2016 - Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book WINNER 2016 - Sydney Taylor Book Award, Association of Jewish Libraries FINALIST 2016 - National Jewish Book Awards Adam and Thomas is the story of two nine-year-old Jewish boys who survive World War II by banding together in the forest. They are alone, visited only furtively every few days by Mina, a mercurial girl who herself has found refuge from the war by living with a peasant family. She makes secret journeys and brings the boys parcels of food at her own risk. Adam and Thomas must learn to survive and do. They forage and build a small tree house, although it's more like a bird's nest. Adam's family dog, Miro, manages to find his way to him, to the joy of both boys. Miro brings the warmth of home with him. Echoes of the war are felt in the forest. The boys meet fugitives fleeing for their lives and try to help them. They learn to disappear in moments of danger. And they barely survive winter's harshest weather, but when things seem to be at their worst, a miracle happens.

'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

Battling numbing cold, ever-present hunger, and German soldiers determined to hunt them down, four dozen resistance fighters--escapees from a nearby ghetto--hide in a Ukrainian forest, determined to survive the war, sabotage the German war effort, and rescue as many Jews as they can from the trains taking them to concentration camps. Their leader is relentless in his efforts to turn his ragtag band of men and boys into a disciplined force that accomplishes its goals without losing its moral compass. And so when they're not raiding peasants' homes for food and supplies, or training with the weapons taken from the soldiers they have ambushed and killed, the partisans read books of faith and philosophy that they have rescued from abandoned Jewish homes, and they draw strength from the women, the elderly, and the remarkably resilient orphaned children they are protecting. When they hear about the advances being made by the Soviet Army, the partisans prepare for what they know will be a furious attack on their compound by the retreating Germans. In the heartbreaking aftermath, the survivors emerge from the forest to bury their dead, care for their wounded, and grimly confront a world that is surprised by their existence--and profoundly unwelcoming

The second and last children's book by the extraordinary Holocaust survivor and Hebrew-language author of the award-winning Adam & Thomas. A mystical and transcendent journey of two wanderers, an eleven-year-old boy and an old man to whom the boy has been entrusted by his father, a Jew, fleeing the ravages of the war by the late award winning author, Aharon Appelfeld. The old man is a former Ukranian commander, revered by the soldiers under his command, who has gone blind and chosen the life of a wanderer as his last spiritual adventure. The child, now disguised as a Ukranian non-Jew, learns from the old man how to fend for himself and how to care for others. In the tradition of The Alchemist, the travelers learn from each other and the boy grows stronger and wiser as the old man teaches him the art of survival and, through the stories he shares, the reasons for living. Long Summer Nights carries its magic not only in the words, but also in the silences between them.

Set in turn of the century Eastern Europe, the story follows a brother and sister tasked with guarding an ancient Jewish cemetery on a remote mountain. While the snow shields them from external threats like pogroms and plagues, it also isolates them from their community and traditions. Their struggle against loneliness, wavering faith, and the growing, complicated feelings for each other creates a tense atmosphere, making escape from their situation increasingly unattainable.

Aharon Appelfeld was the child of middle-class Jewish parents living in Romania at the outbreak of World War II. He witnessed the murder of his mother, lost his father, endured the ghetto and a two-month forced march to a camp, before he escaped. Living off the land in the forests of Ukraine for two years before making the long journey south to Italy and eventually Israel and freedom, Appelfeld finally found a home in which he could make a life for himself. Acclaimed writer Appelfeld’s extraordinary and painful memoir of his childhood and youth is a compelling account of a boy coming of age in a hostile world.

Set in 1937, a remote hotel near Vienna serves as a refuge for those seeking to shed their Jewish identities in a time of rising danger. Guests participate in activities designed to help them assimilate as gentiles, unaware of the impending threats they face. As Hitler's influence grows, the illusion of safety and the possibility of retreat diminish. The narrative explores themes of identity and denial, offering a poignant and incisive portrayal of individuals grappling with their reality amidst a looming catastrophe.

It is the spring of 1939. In months Europe will be Hitler's, and Badenheim, a resort town vaguely in the orbit of Vienna, is preparing for its annual summer season. Soon the vacationers arrive, as they always have, a sample of Jewish middle-class life. The story unfolds as a matter-of-factly as a Chekhov play, its characters so deeply held by their defensive trivia that they manage to misconstrue every signal of their fate, until these signals take on the lineaments of disaster. "The writing flows seamlessly...a small masterpiece." Irving Howe, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW "As real as Kafka's unnamed Prague...imbued with a Watteau-like melancholy." Gabriel Annan, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS "Magical...gliding from a kind of romantic realism into universal allegory." Peter Prescott, NEWSWEEK "The sorcery of Badenheim 1939 [lies in] the success with which the author has concocted a drab narrative involving rather ordinary characters and made their experienced profoundly symbolic yet never hollow." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, NEW YORK TIMES