Kahn and Engelmann (Trade Paper)

Description

A critical and commercial success in German,Kahn & Engelmanntells the story of a Jewish family from rural Hungary, their immigration to Vienna in the great days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, their loves, business ventures and failings, and their eventual tragic destruction. Narrated by Peter Engelmann, who wishes only to forget his past, this highly original novel recreates a vanished Vienna with salty humour and humanity. In a voice which is appealing without being sentimental, Peter describes his escape from the Nazis through snowy woods, his attempts to start a new life in England and Canada, and his decision to immigrate to Israel. Written by an eminent scholar, himself a survivor of Nazism,Kahn & Engelmannis both an entertaining novel and a major work of Holocaust literature.This sweeping novel describes in a narrative that is both personal and broadJewish Book WorldThe freedom of the novel form and the use of the narrators voice has brought the book to life far more than would have been possible if he had simply recounted these events as they happened.A Common ReaderKahn & Engelmannrecreates a long-lost way of life. But it also revives a vanished pan-European sensibility. Beautifully written, it may be the last great European novel, a middle-European hybrid ofRemembrance of Things PastandBuddenbrooks.Globe and MailEichners narrative implicates contemporary readers as none of the others can do today by remaining a family saga, complicated by family businesses, messy divorces, rivalries, disputes, suicides, success and failure, all of it compelling to anyone with a family.Geist