As I mentioned in an earlier post I have not yes posted a review of a book I read for the War Through the Generations Challenge. The book in question is Farewell, Shanghai by Angel Wagenstein. I read it already in the beginning of October, but had no time to post about it back then.
Angel Wagenstein is a Bulgarian novelist. Farewell, Shanghai is his third novel. It won the Jean Monnet Prize of European Literature in 2004. In addition of Farewell, Shanghai, also Wagenstein's first novel, Isaac's Torah, is available in English.
Farewell, Shanghai tells the stories of various individuals, among others the famous violinist Theodore Weissberg and his non-Jewish wife Elizabeth, Hilde a young actress, who hides her Jewish ancestry, and Vladek, an Eastern European adventurer wanted by the police. The story moves from Nazi Germany, through soon-to-be-occupied Paris to Shanghai, a pocket of safety (or so they think) in a world gone grazy.
What I especially liked in Farewell, Shanghai was that among all the books I have read about World War II, it brought something new to the story. The setting (Shanghai) was different and that enabled Wagenstein's stories to feel more unique than has the main part of the story been set in some European location. The characters felt real and multidimentional and as a reader I cared about all of them. If you want to read a little bit different novel about the WW II, then I highly recommend Farewell, Shanghai.
No comments:
Post a Comment