The Canvas

(Paperback)

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Description

Loosely based on the true story of Binjamin Wilkomirski, whose fabricated 1995 Holocaust memoir transfixed the reading public, The Canvas has a singular construction, its two inter-related narratives begin at either end and meet in the middle. Amnon Zichroni, a psychoanalyst in Zurich, encourages Minsky to write a book about his traumatic childhood experience in a Nazi death camp, a memoir which the journalist Jan Wechsler claims is a fiction. Years later, a suitcase arrives on Wechsler's doorstep, allegedly lost in Israel, a trip he has no memory of.

Reviews

"Benjamin Stein's The Canvas is a riveting work of literature. Its many layered complexity and linguistic elegance defy categorization. This book can be read as a literary detective story as well as a subtle psychological novel."Jdische Zeitung "The Canvas is an engaging read guardedly recommended to psychological mystery enthusiasts"New York Journal of Books "Playful, suspenseful, and one hell of a page-turner."Full Stop "Each chapter tantalizes with suggestive and scattered clues. But the mystery remains stubborn, in part because its resolution hides behind a trick of perspective."Words Without Borders "Steinwho shows himself to be a masterful storyteller throughoutdoes his best in this novel by presenting so much of the material in a very believable, realistic way"The Complete Review

Author Bio

Benjamin Stein was born in East Berlin in 1970. He has worked as an editor and correspondent for various computer magazines and has been a corporate It advisor since 1998. He owns the author-run publishing house Edition Neue Moderne and writes the literary weblog Turmsegler. Benjamin Stein is married with two children and lives in Munich. Brian Zumhagen has been a weekend anchor at WNYC since 2003. He received a grant from the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship to produce radio features for the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Canvas is his first book translation.