11th of Av

The 11th of Av is a story of love, death and dreams set in the often-besieged Galician town of Przemy?l, a fortress on the frontier of the socially dynamic, multicultural border of pre-World War I Austria-Hungary. It is the story of a tough, passionate, and optimistic generation - the ultimate flowering of eight centuries of Jewish life in the East - who believed, despite overwhelming odds, they could build a better world. But it is also the story of the beginning of the end of Eastern Jewry, as the brutal conflict sets in motion their heartbreaking transition from subjects of The Empire to a fractured, stateless people struggling to carve out new lives in an unfamiliar and increasingly dangerous world.

David R. Semmel has been a software entrepreneur, hedge-fund manager, and venture capitalist. This novel, his first, was inspired by stories his grandmother Fannie told him about growing up in Galicia during the Great War. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana with wife Jocelyn Bowie.