Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Annie Dawid's "Darkness" Reviewed

We just received the following review via email from 2010 Faculty Member Annie Dawid who will be teaching a weekend workshop, (Fictional) Character Wanted (All Levels), next July:

Published in Jewish Book World, Winter 2009

"This sprawling, warm-hearted story spans six continents and one hundred years, from the 1900 Sabbath table of Reizl and Lazar Solomon and their young sons, in Radautz, Bukovina, to a glorious millennial reunion in Paris.

"Dawid presents the family history in twenty-four accounts of varying length, rich in personal vignettes though mindful of the overriding historical arc. Here is Hans, a grandson of Reizl and Lazar, 'resident alien' of Tientsin, North China,1939; Berthold, another grandson, on day 555 of his imprisonment in a Cmmunist prison cell, 1950; great-granddaughters Toni and Marguerite, 'les Belles Jumelles,' internationally acclaimed Belgian duo-pianists, 1990s.

"The final story, set in Neuilly, a suburb of Paris, is an amazing set piece. From far-flung corners of the world, e.g., Dakar, Liverpool, Haifa, San Francisco, Saigon, Moscow, Capetown, Rio, Brussels, Dublin, New York, the descendants of Reizl and Lazar -- gay, straight, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-racial, multi-talented -- assemble in boisterous celebration of the ninety-second birthday of Freda, granddaughter of Reizl and Lazar, oldest surviving member of the family, and the birth of the new millennium."

Congratulations, Annie!

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