Kahn & Engelmann: A Novel

(Paperback)

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A critical and commercial success in German, Kahn & Engelmann tells the story of a Jewish family from rural Hungary, their immigration to Vienna in the great days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, their loves, business ventures and failings, and their eventual tragic destruction. Narrated by Peter Engelmann, who wishes only to forget his past, this highly original novel recreates a vanished Vienna with salty humour and humanity. In a voice which is appealing without being sentimental, Peter describes his escape from the Nazis through snowy woods, his attempts to start a new life in England and Canada, and his decision to immigrate to Israel. Written by an eminent scholar, himself a survivor of Nazism, Kahn & Engelmann is both an entertaining novel and a major work of Holocaust literature.

Reviews

"This sweeping novel describes in a narrative that is both personal and broad..."--Jewish Book World "The freedom of the novel form and the use of the narrator's voice has brought the book to life far more than would have been possible if he had simply recounted these events as they happened."A Common Reader "Kahn & Engelmann recreates a long-lost way of life. But it also revives a vanished pan-European sensibility. Beautifully written, it may be the last great European novel, a middle-European hybrid of Remembrance of Things Past and Buddenbrooks."—Globe and Mail "Eichner's narrative implicates contemporary readers as none of the others can do today by remaining a family saga, complicated by family businesses, messy divorces, rivalries, disputes, suicides, success and failure, all of it compelling to anyone with a family."Geist

Author Bio

Hans Eichner: Hans Eichner was born in Vienna in 1921 and, being Jewish, escaped to England after the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany. He enrolled at the University of London as an extension student in 1943, got a Ph.D. in 1949 and taught German language and literature at Bedford College in London, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of Toronto from 1948-1988. He published books on Thomas Mann and Friedrich Schlegel. His novel Kahn & Englemann was first published in German in 2000 and was reprinted in 2002.