Katerina

Full of beauty and pain… a chilling allegory that attains a satisfying force – John Self * Observer *Read this book … Think what a gift of lyric language and style, of emotion purified by pain this is – Anne Roiphe * Los Angeles Times *Appelfeld reimagines the place of his own origins through a perspective that in its generosity of feeling recalls Tolstoy and Chekhov – Judith Grossman * The New York Times Book Review *With piercing clarity, Israeli novelist Appelfeld tells the profoundly moving story of Katerina, a Polish housekeeper who works for a succession of Jewish families in the years before WWII… A theme that might be didactic in the hands of a lesser novelist is here conveyed with moving, unpreachy simplicity. This masterful novel is a powerful study of the poison of prejudice, a poignant meditation on life’s horrors, beauty and God’s inscrutable ways. Appelfeld imbues every scene with deep humanity in a riveting tale of universal appeal. * Publisher’s Weekly *An astounding achievement, among the best pages Appelfeld has ever written.. intense, disturbing. * Kirkus Reviews *

Aharon Appelfeld authored more than 45 acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction and received many international awards including the MLA Commonwealth Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction prize, the Prix Medicis etranger, the Israel prize, and the Nelly Sachs prize. Born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (now part of Ukraine) in 1932, he survived the Holocaust and passed away in Israel in 2018.