Lover, Traitor: A Jerusalem Story - Hardcover

Mitgutsch, Anna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805041745 ISBN 13: 9780805041743

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1997

Synopsis

Devorah, an Austrian Jew, travels to Jerusalem in search of her family history, and she soon becomes romantically involved with a young Palestinian whom she suspects may be using her for political reasons.

About this title

About the Author

Anna Mitgutsch has taught German and English literature at the University of Innsbruck, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in Seoul and Boston.

Reviews

A haunting and understated exploration of identity and memory, by the Austrian-American academic (English/Univ. of Innsbruck, Hebrew University) whose previous works (Jakob, 1991, etc.) have won numerous awards in Germany. Devorah, a young Austrian in Jerusalem, is in search of some key to her past. Raised in America in a family of Catholic ‚migr‚s, she's learned that her grandmother left Vienna in 1941 not simply because she was anti-Nazi, but because she was a Jew. In Israel, Devorah hopes to find out the truth behind her family's fictions, and as she makes inquiries among friends and relations about the circumstances of her family's wanderings, she begins to lose sight of her own place in the world: ``Uncertainty, secrets, and death- -these were the qualities of my childhood. And silence.'' The silence of Devorah's past becomes infused with the confusions of her present, however, when she falls in love with Sivan, a young Arab whom she meets in the Old Town. An Armenian Christian, Sivan is intense, brooding, and far too enigmatic for any woman's good. Devorah's friends warn her that he may be a Palestinian, as well as a terrorist, and Sivan's own frequent and unexplained disappearances do nothing to allay Devorah's fears. When a bus is blown up in the Old Town and dozens of bystanders are killed under circumstances that implicate not only Sivan but (unwittingly) Devorah herself, her fears intensify--but so, inexplicably, does her obsession. Within the private drama of Devorah's own uncertainty about herself and her real identity, Sivan provides a vivid and excruciating reminder that she's straddling a fence between two very different and hostile worlds. The resolution she settles on is no less painful or poignant--or credible--for being inevitable. Powerful, moving, and deft: Mitgutsch makes good use of the private meanings reflected in public events, and understands that the distinctions between them are as arbitrary and tenuous as any boundary drawn in the desert. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Raised Roman Catholic in postwar Austria, the narrator of this novel discovers that her beloved grandmother hid her Jewish identity upon marrying a gentile. Attempting to recover her lost Jewish heritage, she calls herself Devorah and moves to New York City but is drawn to Jerusalem three times over the course of 20 years. During her most recent visit, she is approached by a young "Armenian" with whom she falls in love. Suspicion slowly dawns that he is Palestinian and may have used her in a thwarted terrorist plot. With great sensitivity, Mitgutsch (In Foreign Cities, Ariadne, 1995. pap.) here explores a modern woman's encounter with religion, fanaticism, and the mutability of identity. Most impressive is the portrait of Jerusalem, both as a physical presence and as a context in which allegiances are constantly challenged. Recommended for larger fiction collections.?Michael T. O'Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805041745
• ISBN 13: 9780805041743
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 211