My father gave me this book ages ago telling me that I simply had to read it. He was right, this novel is a masterpiece. Spanning centuries, Brooks tells the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, that managed to survive the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the Inquisition in Venice, racism in Vienna and the Nazis in Sarajevo. The novel is punctuated with the story of Hanna who restores books and has a troubled relationship with her mother and her lovers. Throughout the story, we get to travel with the book and Hanna throughout time which allows us to explore and better understand the fraught but resilient Jewish experience over the last four hundred years Europe. When I finished reading, I felt very proud of my Jewish heritage and wanted to be a book restorer.
No comments:
Post a Comment