Produktdetaljer
“Levinson’s beautiful, poetic translation of Isaiah Spiegel’s novel, <i>Flames from the Earth</i>, makes a significant contribution to Holocaust, Jewish, Polish, and Yiddish studies. The dreamy, Symbolist style of the work adds to our repertoire of Holocaust literature, largely dominated by realism. The emphasis on the physical setting, the cinematic use of color, the animation of inanimate objects, and references to worlds of enchantment belong to developments in Yiddish and European modernism. Historical, biographical, and literary-historical framing and contextualization lay out the relevant information about the author, this novel, its place in Holocaust literature, the history of the ŁÓdź Ghetto, and other important facts in a clear, succinct style, accessible to the intended audience.” —Harriet Murav, author of <i>David Bergelson’s Strange New World: Untimeliness and Futurity</i>
Flames from the Earth: A Novel from the ŁÓdź Ghetto is an autobiographical novel written by Isaiah Spiegel, one of the most revered Yiddish authors to survive the Holocaust. Originally published in Israel in 1966, the novel brings together material that Spiegel wrote while imprisoned in the ŁÓdź Ghetto, which he recovered from a cellar when he returned from Auschwitz after the war. The only works by Spiegel previously available to English readers have been short stories.
In this, his first novel, Spiegel explores a complex web of characters in and around the ŁÓdź Ghetto: Vigdor and Gitele, lovers who are involved in the ghetto resistance movement; Nicodem, a Polish priest, who hides a member of the Jewish underground; Stefan Kaczmarek, a Polish tavern keeper who betrays Nicodem to preserve his own smuggling business; Franz Jessike, a Nazi guard who blackmails local Poles for personal gain; and Chaim Vidaver, the heroic leader of the ghetto resistance. Based largely on historical events, the novel’s lyrical style echoes its emotional intensity.
Gripping and atmospheric, Flames from the Earth honors daring acts of heroism and human connections forged amid unthinkable conditions. Spiegel’s novel represents an important contribution to the archive of literary depictions of historical trauma.
List of Books by Isaiah Spiegel
Flames from the Earth
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Translator's Afterword
Acknowledgments
Notes