'This Darkness Will Never End' turns one!

Once upon a time, I'd never heard of the phrase "book birthday." And now my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, is turning one. Happy book birthday to my little translation!

My life has changed since I began translating Edith Bruck’s work, and also in the year since my translation of her first short story collection was published. I've spent a lot of precious, joyful time talking to people about the woman who described herself when she wrote about a fictional girl in the short story, "Matzoh Bread," who was "the age I'd been when I lost everyone and everything."

I've gained a permanent side gig reading about World War II; at first, I devoured works by the other women authors who wrote about their experiences of deportation, and now almost anything pertaining to the war that gave birth to The Greatest Generation (I'm currently reading "The Longest Day," by Cornelius Ryan -- better late than never, right?).

We all have side tables and book shelves crammed with books we plan to read but I think This Darkness Will Never End, which brings Edith's seminal 1962 short story collection into the English-speaking world, is worthy of your time:

        Click here to buy from Amazon

        OR here to buy from Bookshop

And if you have a moment, you can write a review on Amazon. My sincere thanks to everyone who's done so already! And if you're on Goodreads, go ahead and shelve the book. After all, you've probably seen Roberto Benigni's film, "Life Is Beautiful," which was inspired in part by the title story of this book.

Also: are you in a book club? Here's a reading guide for the translation. I'd love for you to read the translation, and maybe you could also consider it as a gift.

If you’d like to read some of her other work, below you’ll find links to some of my translations of her fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

*My translation of a speech she gave called "My Alma Mater Is Auschwitz":

https://worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/my-alma-mater-auschwitz-edith-bruck

*An excerpt of her second short story collection, Two Empty Rooms:

https://jewishcurrents.org/two-empty-rooms

*Translations of some of my favorite poems by Edith Bruck, including one in which she writes, "If there’s another life/I will be a yellow star/ To remind you once upon a time​/there was Auschwitz​":

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/edith-bruck-versi-vissuti/

One more thing: here’s a recording of a talk I gave about my translation, courtesy of the wonderful librarians in Northampton, Massachusetts (it includes a lot of biographical information and anecdotes from my visit with Edith Bruck last summer in Rome).

I’ll close once again with one of my favorite lines from Edith’s work (which you can hear at the link to the American Scholar's podcast, "Read Me a Poem"):

Sometimes it takes so little

Almost nothing

A simple gesture

A glance;

As when in the Lager

They allowed you a potato

A turnip

A tattered glove

Life is beautiful in those moments

And human beings so very kind

 -30-