Gemelle imperfette

Un racconto intenso ed emozionante che racconta la forza del legame affettivo tra Stascha e Pearl, due gemelline. Un libro dove Affinity Konar ha avuto la capacità di «rappresentare l’inferno che era Auschwitz, e allo stesso tempo di catturare la resilienza di molti prigionieri. La loro capacità di rimanere, nelle parole di Wiesel, umani in un disumano universo» (Michiko Kakutani, “New York Times”).

We don’t always know ourselves, who we can become, what we may do, after evil has done what it likes with us. Coming of age is tough enough, but toss in a World War, a forced relocation to one of the most infamous vortices of evil the world has ever known, and, for good measure, add in being in

"For eight months we were afloat in amniotic snowfall, two rosy mittens resting on the lining of our mother. I couldn’t imagine anything grander than the womb we shared, but after the scaffolds of our brains were ivoried and our spleens were complete, Pearl wanted to see the world beyond us. And

I was quite wary about starting "Mischling" having heard how powerful and harrowing it was from fellow readers. What went on during the holocaust was without doubt inhumane, brutal and incomprehensible, however this book almost had a YA feel to it, so it tended to hold back just enough on the vivid

Mischling – the term was used during the Third Reich to characterize those who bore both Aryan and Jewish blood – is not for the faint of heart. It is nightmarish and shattering. It is also – dare I use the term? – uplifting. It resists limpid sentimentality and the contortion of history and pays wi Leggi tutto

This sobering story of identical twin sisters interred at Auschwitz and subjected to Mengele's horrific experiments is somewhat a tough read. The reader is spared most of the nitty gritty details of his psychotic operations and vivisections, along with hints of the extremely high rate of executions. Leggi tutto

A Question of Tone After two quite different attempts to review this unusual Holocaust novel by Affinity Konar, I am finally giving up, with an admission that I probably missed the author's point. The ostensible narrators are two Jewish girls, identical twins who, because their blonde hair made them Leggi tutto