Name: reunion
Price: 16.15 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Fred Uhlman
ISBN: 9780374525156

Type

Physical Book

Author

Fred Uhlman

Introduction by

Arthur Koestler

Publisher

Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl

Language

English

Pages

111

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

21.1 x 13.7 x 1.3 cm

Weight

0.14 kg.

ISBN

0374525153

ISBN13

9780374525156

Synopsis "reunion"

A daring novella about the loss of innocence in pre-war Germany. Reunion is the story of intense and innocent devotion between two young men growing up in the soft, serene, bluish hills of Swabia, and the sinister (but all too mundane) forces that end both their friendship and their childhood. The year is 1932. Hans Schwartz is Jewish, the son of a Stuttgart doctor who asserts that the rise of the Nazis is a temporary illness, something like measles which will pass off as soon as the economic situation improves. The Holocaust would be unthinkable for these characters, but of course it looms over the story: Hans's friend, the young Count Konradin von Hohenfels, has a mother who keeps a portrait of Hitler on her dresser. The two boys share their most private thoughts and trips to the countryside of southwest Germany, discuss poetry and the past and present of their country, and argue the existence of a benevolent God. The eventual disintegration of this cherished relationship foreshadows the fate of Europe's Jews-- but Uhlman doesn't end his story with neat polarities. Years later, exiled in America, Hans comes upon a revelation about von Hohenfels which provides a stunning denouement and leaves the reader recalling Uhlman's haunting, lyrical descriptions of the vineyards, opera houses, and dark forests of Württemberg. Hundreds of bulky tomes have now been written about the age when corpses were melted into soap to keep the master race clean; yet I sincerely believe that this slim volume will find its lasting place on the shelves.--Arthur Koestler, from the Introduction

Fred Uhlman

(Author)

View Author's Page

Fred Uhlman (Stuttgart, 1901-London, 1985), of Jewish origin, left Germany in March 1933, shortly after Hitler was appointed chancellor. He lived for a while in Paris and later in Spain (in Tossa de Mar), from where he also fled when the civil war broke out, and after returning to Paris for a few months, he reached London; there he founded the Artist’s Refugee Committee and the Free German League of Culture, among whose members were Oskar Kokoschka and Stefan Zweig. In 1971 he published Reunion, and in 1985 his "response", A Courageous Soul.

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