Katerina

Appelfeld’s 1989 novel Katerina (translated by Jeffrey M Green) is stranger still than Badenheim 1939, but ultimately no less satisfying. It opens in simple, fable-like style – “My name is Katerina, and I will soon be 80 years old” – as it tells the story of her life as a Ruthenian (eastern Slav) growing up in the 1880s. She is taught suspicion of Jews – “there’s nothing easier than to hate the Jews” – but when she becomes pregnant and is taken in by a Jewish family, she questions her prejudices. Yet antisemitism, we know, does not lie down quietly. John Self, The Guardian

in questo articolo vengono recensiti tre libri di Appelfeld di recenti usciti presso Penguin, Badenheim 1939, Katerina and The Story of a Life