Farewell, Shanghai
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Description
Elisabeth and Theodore Weissberg, famous musicians, Hilde, a young film extra, and Vladek, an Eastern European adventurer wanted by the police on political charges, flee Nazi Germany for Shanghai at the onset of World War II. A magnet for every human ambition and vice, Shanghai is a city of extremes-of dazzling wealth and wretched poverty, suffering and pleasure, and, for the four refugees, exile and safety. There, they enter the world of Jewish refugees, many of them artists and intellectuals, who must either starve or eke out an impoverished and sometimes degraded living, but they are determined to live intelligently, upholding the high culture, humor, and even, insofar as they can, the elegance of their former lives. Master storyteller Angel Wagenstein crafts an intense narrative of life and death, passionate love, and profound courage against the backdrop of the war and the millions of lives caught up in it.
Product Details
Price
$13.95
$12.97
Publisher
Other Press (NY)
Publish Date
November 04, 2008
Pages
400
Dimensions
5.54 X 8.5 X 1.17 inches | 0.98 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781590513088
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About the Author
Angel Wagenstein is a Bulgarian screenwriter and author. His film Stars, shot in 1959 by the German director Konrad Wolf, was awarded the Special Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. His fiction includes the triptych of novels Isaac's Torah, Far from Toledo, and Farewell, Shanghai, which have been published in French, German, Russian, English, Czech, Polish, Macedonian, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and other languages. Farewell, Shanghai received the Jean Monnet Prize of European literature in 2004, and in 2022 was adapted into a six-episode television series directed by Radu Mihăileanu. Wagenstein is a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Deliana Simeonova was born in Bulgaria and studied English philology and American literature at the University of Sofia. She has worked for civil-society NGOs in Tajikistan, Serbia, Liberia, and now does that work in her native Bulgaria. Elizabeth Frank is a Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Bard College.
Reviews
"A sweeping cinematic melodrama that depicts an exotic and little-known chapter of Jewish history...the panoramic story of Farewell, Shanghai alights upon all of the city's wartime social strata, with vivid characters whose activities--including epic gestures of romance, espionage, and betrayal--necessarily sidestep the good/evil dichotomy...compelling." --The Nation "Like an epic movie director from Hollywood's Golden Age, Angel Wagenstein takes as the subject of his new novel nothing less than humanity...A sprawling and utterly engaging book." --San Francisco Chronicle "Wagenstein intelligently interweaves the voices of several characters, whose common thread is their desire to live in safety. Winner of the 2004 Jean Monnet Award, this novel sheds light on a forgotten part of history that is only now becoming known. Recommended." --Library Journal "Moving effortlessly from Paris to Dresden to Shanghai, Wagenstein masterfully chronicles the lives of European émigrés and refugees in WWII Shanghai...Impressive in his ability to move from the small details of individual displaced lives to a larger panorama of international intrigue...Wagenstein brings to life a largely unknown chapter of Nazi persecution." --Publishers Weekly "Farewell, Shanghai captures this political and cultural maelstrom during World War II. Vividly written, paced like a thriller and rich with cinematic detail, the reader can practically smell the fetid, swampy air of the city. Wagenstein's smoothly translated and fluid narrative has a sardonic edge...The riveting story of the Jews in Shanghai in the 1930s and '40s might seem hardly credible, but as Wagenstein archly says, 'Is there anything more implausible than History?'" --Moment "Wagenstein is one of Bulgaria's greatest modern writers. In Farewell, Shanghai, he has constructed a fascinating and profoundly moving roman à clef...a worthy edition to the stories true and just short of true that chronicle human destinies strewn like flotsam and jetsam in the great storm of World War II." --The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) "Gripping...A fascinating story that effectively tells about the tragic events that beset those Jews who managed to reach Shanghai in 1938 and 1939 before World War II began." --National Jewish Post "Based on real people and terrifyingly true events, Wagenstein's gripping tale (and its excellent translation into English) exposes the less-discussed but just as horrific history of the Nazi regime in China." --Historical Novels Review "Farewell Shanghai is a major contribution to the literature about World War II and an outstanding novel." --The Reporter (Broome County, NY) "Vividly cinematic...A profound examination of the radically different ways humans react to moral challenges." --The Tennessean "Mr. Wagenstein has done his research well and the reader soon feels he is part of the city during the years of World War II. Farewell, Shanghai is an exciting read, a description of passion, courage, weakness, and the ultimate irony of life and death." --Washington Times "Brings a new and moving dimension to our knowledge of the Holocaust." --Jewish Book World
