Book Of The Month November, 2007
Death In DanzigStefan Chwin
A moving portrait of people in transition – between old and new, life and death. Germans flee the besieged city of Danzig in 1945. Poles driven out of eastern regions by the Russians move into the homes hastily abandoned by their previous inhabitants. In an area of the city graced with beech trees and a stately cathedral, the stories of old and new residents intertwine: Hanemann, a German and a former professor of anatomy, who chooses to stay in Danzig after the mysterious death of his lover; the Polish family of the narrator, driven out of Warsaw; and a young Carpathian woman who no longer has a country, her cheerful nature concealing deep wounds. Through his brilliantly defined characters, stunning evocation of place, and memorable description of remnants of a world that was German but survives in Polish households, Chwin has created a reality that is beyond destruction.
What We Think
The Random House Group Marketing on Death in Danzig:
Set in the city of Danzig in 1945, Death in Danzig tells the tale of the lives of old and new inhabitants of this besieged city, moving in transition between old and new, life and death. Shortly to be made into a film, Death in Danzig was published in March 2006.
‘A richly expressive novel of enforced cultural change in postwar Danzig…A beautiful book, and nothing about it is more sumptuously and expressively beautiful than Philip Boehm’s translation’
Guardian