Winner of the August Prize, an intricate weave of documents, substantive narrative, and emotional commentary that centers on a young Jewish refugee's friendship with the future founder of IKEA.
Elisabeth sbrink is a journalist and author from Sweden and previously served as the chairperson of PEN Sweden. Her book, And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain, received worldwide attention for revealing new information about IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad's ties to Nazism. It won several awards, including the August Prize for Best Swedish Non-Fiction Book of the Year, the Danish-Swedish Cultural Fund Prize, and Poland's Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage. sbrink made her debut as a playwright with R LS, based on the minutes taken at a meeting convened by Hermann G ring in 1938, and has since written four plays. Saskia Vogel is from Los Angeles and lives in Berlin, where she works as a writer and Swedish-to-English literary translator. She has written on the themes of gender, power, and sexuality for publications such as Granta, The White Review, The Offing, and The Quietus. Her translations include work by leading female authors, such as Katrine Marcal, Karolina Ramqvist, and the modernist eroticist Rut Hillarp.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
"Engrossing...compelling...Top-notch microcosmic World War II
history and an excellent illustration of the immense power of the
written word." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] multilayered history...This devastating account has the
lyricism and complexity of a finely wrought novel." -Publishers
Weekly
"[A] touching book." -Times Literary Supplement
"Asbrink's historic timeline of Christianity's long
scourge-and-purge tactics against Jews is chilling, as are the
parallels readers will note to today's immigration
discussions...[a] must-read." -Booklist
"And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain is a gripping saga
of love, friendship, betrayal, and, above all, courage-the courage
of parents trapped in the Nazi inferno who yet never waver in their
devotion to their son. This is one of the most moving books I have
ever read about that dark period in history." -Francine Klagsbrun,
author of Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel
Praise for 1947: Where Now Begins:
"1947 is one of those books that makes you want to major in
history. It is one of the best books, certainly the best nonfiction
book, that I've read recently. I think the subtitle, Where Now
Begins, really speaks to one of the things that makes this book so
important: The echoes of 1947 are resonating very, very clearly
today." -Nancy Pearl on NPR's Morning Edition
"An extraordinary achievement." -New York Times Book
Review
"A skillful and illuminating way of presenting, to wonderful
effect, the cultural, political, and personal history of a year
that changed the world." -Kirkus Reviews
"Asbrink writes sentences that make one gasp in
admiration...[1947] should be read for its poetry, its
insights, and the interweaving of personal and political
judgments." -Sydney Morning Herald
"Extraordinarily inventive and gripping, a uniquely personal
account of a single, momentous year." -Philippe Sands, author of
East West Street
"This is history as a series of eclectic snapshots of events and
episodes and people, from the Nuremberg Trials to the partition of
India, during a year in which the world tried to redefine its hopes
and come to terms with its failures: and it makes for fascinating,
disquieting, lively, and often surprising reading." -Caroline
Moorehead, author of Village of Secrets
"Lucid and vivid...An outstanding work, history as it should be
told." -Salil Tripathi, Chair of the PEN International Writers in
Prison Committee, and author of The Colonel Who Would Not
Repent
"Asbrink deftly brings together the tangle, the mess, the
aspirations, and the disappointments which characterized the period
and which for her resonate personally through her family history."
-Rosemary Ashton, author of One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin,
Disraeli, and the Great Stink of 1858
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