Biblioasis has just published Kahn & Englemann by Hans Eichner. It is a family saga that revolves around one man's guilt for surviving the Holocaust. Though the book was a strong success in Germany, it took 10 years before it was translated into English, and the author--already 79 when the book was first published--passed away within days of the book's English-language debut.
Here is the description from the publisher's website:
A critical and commercial success in German, Kahn & Engelmann tells 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 & Engelmann is both an entertaining novel and a major work of Holocaust literature.
Library Journal's review of the book can be read
here.
An excerpt from
Quill & Quire's review:
Midway through the novel, Engelmann notes that “the taste of quince reminds me of my childhood, albeit without awakening such a world of memories as Proust’s madeleine.” Yet Eichner’s novel is nothing if not a “world of memories” written, Proust-like, in stream-of-consciousness peppered with self-analysis. Eichner has an enjoyably sardonic sense of humour, a weakness for rabbi jokes, and a fondness for Jewish tradition, which he lovingly details, while nevertheless maintaining a deep skepticism about issues of religion and race.
