Melnitz

(Paperback)

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Description

1871. Cattle-dealer Solomon Meijer has made a reputation for himself as one of the few honest Jews in Endingen, a rare Swiss town in which Jews are allowed to reside. He leads a largely untroubled life, rewarded by his work and comforted at home by his wife and two daughters. But all of this is set to end when he answers a knock at the door in the middle of the night. On the doorstep stands his young distant cousin, Janki, half-dead and begging for refuge. The pitiful figure is invited in and given a coveted place in the bosom of the family, but when Janki recovers and regains his ambition and his fine looks, he will change the Meijer family's lives for generations to come

In the tradition of the great family romances of the nineteenth century, Melnitz is the saga of the Swiss-Jewish Meijer family, spanning five generations from the Franco-Prussian War to World War II. It is a novel of fate, fortune and great falls; a homage to the sunken world of yiddish culture and a celebration of the enduring spirit of biting Jewish humour.

Reviews

Stunning... A meaty saga about a Swiss-Jewish family and their fortunes from 1870 to the Second World War... The Meijers face misery, but the book is full of love and laughter, too * The Times *
A novel of humour and charm... Reminiscent of the radio adaptation of War and Peace, with the joie de vivre and melancholic tug of Fiddler on the Roof * Independent *
This epic family saga is finally published in English...a rich and textured portrait of a normal, imperfect family dealing with everyday challenges * Irish Examiner *
The reader lives, loves and suffers with the characters... Charles Lewinsky has written a real page-turner * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany) *
An outstanding novel of a quality only seldom met with... This reviewer cannot remember having read such an extensive book in the last few years as swiftly, easily and inquisitively as this one * Neue Zrcher Zeitung (Switzerland) *

Author Bio

Charles Lewinsky studied German literature and theatre studies in Zurich and Berlin. Among the numerous novels that he has written, he received the Schiller Prize Zrcher Kantonalbank for his novel St. John's (2001) and was nominated for the 2011 Swiss Book Prize for Gerron (2012). He lives in Zurich and the French Vereux.