About The Book

Praise

“Without any doubt, of all contemporary writers Norman Manea is the one who most deserves being known around the world.” –Heinrich B’ll

“[Norman Manea is] a post-Kafkian writer, a faithful guardian of a collective memory endowed with an uncommon, quite unique, poetic gift. . . . Manea’s writing is in the tradition of Kafka, Blecher, and Bruno Schultz: the great poets of catastrophe.” –Le Monde

“Like Robert Musil, Norman Manea creates an almost analytical description of his characters’ soulscapes. . . . He is a poet of the “European House.”” –Berliner Tegesspiel

“The reader becomes absorbed at once. The background is dreamlike but terribly familiar. . . . Manea’s prose treads the edge of the poetry of nightmare.” –John Bayley, The New York Times Book Review

“With delicacy, grace, and compassion, Norman Manea has brought us back from hell an exquisite and painful weave of stories. Here is a magnificent collection by a writer who deserves our full attention.” –Brad Morrow