A Meal in Winter: A Novel of World War II - Hardcover

Mingarelli, Hubert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1620971739 ISBN 13: 9781620971734

Publisher: The New Press, 2016

Synopsis

Acclaimed on its hardcover publication, a “sparse, beautiful and shocking novel” (Ian McEwan) of World War II and the Holocaust

The hardcover publication of A Meal in Winter established Hubert Mingarelli as one of the most exciting new voices in international fiction.

Mingarelli’s timeless novel begins one morning in the dead of winter, during the darkest years of World War II, with three German soldiers heading out into the frozen Polish countryside. They have been charged by their commanders with tracking down and bringing back for execution “one of them”—a Jew. Having flushed out a young man hiding in the woods, they decide to rest in an abandoned house before continuing their journey back to the camp. As they prepare food, they are joined by a passing Pole whose virulent anti-Semitism adds tension to an already charged atmosphere. Before long, the group’s sympathies begin to splinter when each man is forced to confront his own conscience as the moral implications of their murderous mission become clear.

Described by Liberation as “impossible to put down,” A Meal in Winter, with its ”simple declarative sentences and crystalline, cinematic vignettes” (Publishers Weekly) is a “masterpiece of empathy and horror” (The Guardian) that recalls the cinema of Polanski and Hitchcock, the work of Isaac Babel and Ernest Hemingway, and Louis Begley’s Wartime Lies.

About this title

About the Author

Hubert Mingarelli’s books include Quatre soldats (Four Soldiers), which won the Prix de Médicis. He lives in Grenoble. Sam Taylor is a translator, novelist, and journalist. His translated works include Laurent Binet’s award-winning HHhH. His own novels have been translated into ten languages.

Review

Praise for A Meal in Winter:
The book’s deceptive directness and simplicity, and its muted undercurrents of horror, will make many think of the stories of Ernest Hemingway. This is a painful, unconsoling reading, but also a reminder of the power a short, perfect work of fiction can wield.”
Wall Street Journal

Stark and profound.”
New York Times

Fine reading, not just for those interested in the war.”
Library Journal

The command of tone and voice sustains tension until the very last page of a novel that will long resonate in the reader’s conscience.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Masterful. . . . Mingarelli offers a new twist on the Holocaust novel. His spare prose, crisply translated by Sam Taylor, adds to the narrative’s intensity and keeps you turning the pages until its poignant conclusion.”
The Huffington Post

It is 138 profound pages of horror and humanity.”
Book of the Year, the Irish Times

Short, powerful, vivid, and utterly compelling.”
The Jewish Chronicle

Brilliant, devastating, [and] compelling.”
Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs

Haunting. . . . With devastating concision, Mingarelli and his translator, Sam Taylor, carry the moral dilemma to an understated yet stunning conclusion.”
Publishers Weekly (starred)

The banality of evil’ finds beautiful, spare expression in this remarkable novella.”
Ian McEwan

A luminous tale. . . . The most moving book I have read for a long time.”
The Independent on Sunday

A masterpiece.”
The Independent

This strong and simple story packs a mighty punch.”
The Times (London)

Beautiful and disturbing, complex and surprising. . . . This is not easy for the reader to handle, but Mingarelli knows what he is doing.”
The Herald (Glasgow)

About this edition

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1620971739
• ISBN 13: 9781620971734
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 144