For Every Sin (Appelfeld, Aharon) - Softcover

Appelfeld, Aharon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802134467 ISBN 13: 9780802134462

Publisher: Grove Press, 1996

Synopsis

In For Every Sin, Aharon Appelfeld, recounts the moving and unforgettable story of Theo, a young Holocaust survivor struggling to come to terms with his experience. A student when he was first imprisoned, Theo is a young man who has lost his family and friends and wants nothing more than to return to his home. In a desperate attempt to escape the pain of the camps, he sets out to walk across Europe, determined to remain alone until he has regained his strength. In the nightmarish world he enters, haunted by images from his past and continually reunited with fellow survivors, he is forced to come face to face with his own demons and the human condition from which he cannot escape.

About this title

Language Notes

Text: English, Hebrew (translation)

From Publishers Weekly

As in Appelfeld's earlier novels of alienation set during and after the Holocaust ( Badenheim 1939 ; To the Land of the Cattails ), this narrative portrays a man cruelly deprived of will and emotional clarity. Theo, plodding home across Europe after four years in the death camps, is stunned and lifeless, a condition reflected in Appelfeld's deliberately unadorned prose. Remote memories propel Theo toward Baden-bei-Wein--his mother, the chapels they once visited, the cafes and art galleries--and send him scuttling past clusters of refugees who beseech him to stop. He notices neither cold nor hunger, but, yearning for coffee and cigarettes, finally pauses when they are offered and finds himself not many miles from where he began. Like his thoughts, his feet have traveled in circles, pursued by visions he cannot escape. Eventually he understands that he must join those other refugees who "stretch out their hands . . . to the miserable brethren scattered on the deserted roads." At the end of this slim narrative, Theo has tentatively rejoined the company of the survivors, who "can't bring the dead back to life . . . but can at least say 'we're together.' "
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0802134467
• ISBN 13: 9780802134462
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176