Trieste

September 16, 2013
This moving novel of WWII and its aftermath is acclaimed Croatian author Drndic's American debut. In 2006, elderly Haya Tedeschi is awaiting a reunion with her son, who disappeared as an infant during WWII. Haya's memory ranges over her family's past, their experiences in the war, and its effect on their lives. The Tedeschi family lived in Gorizia and nearby Trieste, northern Italian cities caught between the major powers of Europe in cycles of war. But little could have prepared the family for the extremes of German occupation. Haya's richly textured reminisces include biographies of the Reich's film stars, scathing exposés of the complicity of the Swiss government and the Red Cross in the transport of Jews to concentration camps, and harrowing details of sadistic acts committed in the camps. Interspersed with Haya's account are photographs, interviews, and personal testimonies, and, in one case, pages listing the names of all 9,000 Jews deported from or murdered in northern Italy during the war. There is simply too much pain and guilt in this novel for Haya's reunion with her son to offer catharsis, and readers who become more interested in the characters than the history may be disappointed. However, Drndic's themes, use of history, and narrative technique invite favorable comparisons to W.G. Sebald, and the novel's relentlessly uncomfortable mood might be Drndic's point: the historical crimes were great, and complicity of almost everyone was enormous.

October 15, 2013

Outrage, horror, and grief simmer beneath the surface of this gripping novel by Croatian novelist/critic Drndicc(English, Univ. of Rijeka) about the experiences of Italian Jews in the concentration camps of Trieste, in northeastern Italy and under the occupation of Nazi Germany. A blend of fiction and nonfiction, this novel brings in testimony from the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials and eyewitness accounts by camp survivors as part of the research done by main character Haya Tedeschi in her quest to find her son, who was kidnapped by the Nazis as part of the SS-founded Lebensborn program. Drndic's narrative is matter-of-fact, and the format is unusual, including photographs, lists of victims, court transcripts, interviews, and very short biographies of Nazis--mirroring the material collected over six decades by Haya. The effect is to immerse the reader deep into the wartime atrocities, and the result is an unbearable, unusual, and unforgettable tribute to a very dark period of history. VERDICT Highly recommended, this story's gripping historical approach calls to mind the work of Norman Mailer and Don DeLillo. [See Prepub Alert, 7/22/13.]--Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC

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