Reading guide, This Darkness Will Never End
Synopsis:
The short story collection, This Darkness Will Never End by Edith Bruck, portrays in colorful detail the lives of poor Hungarian Jews before, during and after World War II, with the Holocaust alternately looming ahead as a fate that can't be avoided or as the horror that can't be outrun. The collection, published in English by Paul Dry Books, includes a story that is considered by film scholars to have inspired Robert Benigni's Oscar-winning movie "Life Is Beautiful." Bruck, who was born in Hungary in 1931, settled in Italy after the war and has been writing in Italian for more than a half-century. She is the author of two dozen novels, short story collections, books of poetry and works of nonfiction, many of which touch on her survival of the 20th century's worst atrocity. Through her work, Bruck supplies an answer to a critical question: What can women writers tell us about surviving the Holocaust era?
For more information about This Darkness Will Never End, visit Paul Dry Books:
https://www.pauldrybooks.com/products/this-darkness-will-never-end
This book is perfect for individuals and book clubs interested in these topics:
*Italian Literature
*World War II Literature
*Jewish Studies, especially Holocaust Studies
*Women's Studies, including overlooked women authors
*World and Transnational Literature
*Postwar Literature
*Short Works of Fiction
*European History
What the critics said:
Eleanor Foa, Jewish Book Council
"Hungarian-born author Edith Bruck survived deportation to five concentration camps, lost her family, and settled in Italy in 1954. Her award-winning work — including more than twenty books — is often compared to that of Anne Frank and Primo Levi, and yet is hardly known in the United States. This impressive book of short stories, originally published in 1962, and freshly translated from Italian by Jeanne Bonner, will hopefully help to change that.
"This Darkness Will Never End does not directly depict the Holocaust. Instead, this collection of fable-like tales plunges us into the lives of poor, rural, Jewish families — mostly from the point of view of women and children — before, during, and after the war. We know their future, but they do not. This vanished world is vividly rendered and incredibly poignant, particularly because of what is inferred."
See the full review here:
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/this-darkness-will-never-end
Mega Nola, Foreword Reviews
"Written with a sense of anguished history and oppressed vitality, This Darkness Will Never End is a compelling short story collection."
"First published in 1962, Edith Bruck's masterful short story collection This Darkness Will Never End bears witness to the atrocities of World War II and the lives of those affected by the Holocaust."
See the full review here:
https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/this-darkness-will-never-end/
Yuval Jonas, Printed Matter (Centro Primo Levi)
"In The Frozen River, the collection's first story, Erika, a young girl from a poor Jewish family, falls in love with Endre, a Christian boy from the city. Her family cannot afford to send her to school, so while Endre studies, she does chores—such as washing clothes in the frozen river. She must use a hatchet to break the ice. It is there, under the trees by the river, that the two teenagers meet in secret. One day, Endre tells her they have to stop. He does not say why, but she understands. 'They're fine people, just a little untrusting toward us,' her mother tells her.
"This is how antisemitism functions in these stories: through the eyes of children or adolescents attempting to understand the world around them. Antisemitism is never explicitly made central, but is instead a force that enters and disrupts the lives that the characters had hoped to live.
"With this collection, written at the beginning of her illustrious career, Bruck delivers an elegy—for childhood, for parents lost too soon, and for a world that once existed."
See the full review here:
Discussion questions:
Edith Bruck frequently invokes darkness and light in these stories. How does she manage to balance these two opposing forces?
In the story, "Silvia," a young German boy rescues a Jewish stowaway who then rescues him. How does Edith Bruck depict the young boy's state of mind at the end of the story?
The stories in this collection take place before, during and after World War II. How does Edith Bruck depict the Holocaust in these deeply personal stories?
Most of the narrators we meet in these stories are young Jewish girls like Edith Bruck was at one time. What aspects depicted in these stories do you think were based directly on her experience?
Translator's bio:
Jeanne Bonner is a journalist, essayist and literary translator. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in translation. She also won a PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian literature for her translation of Mariateresa Di Lascia's Passaggio in Ombra. Her translations have been published by the Kenyon Review, The Common, PEN America and Asymptote Journal. She studied Italian literature at Wesleyan University and has an MFA in Writing from Bennington College as well as an MA in Italian Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Connecticut. She occasionally teaches writing at Wesleyan.
Author's bio:
Edith Bruck is the author of two dozen novels, short story collections, books of poetry and works of nonfiction. Born in Hungary in 1931, she has been publishing works of literature in Italian since 1959, five years after permanently settling in Italy. Her novel, Lettera alla madre (English translation title: "Letter to My Mother") won the Rapallo award in 1989. She also won the Viareggio prize for her novel, Quante stelle c'è nel cielo, which was adapted into the movie, "Anita B." Her 1974 short story collection, Due Stanze Vuote, was a candidate for Italy's most prestigious literary prize, the Strega. She was also a finalist for the 2021 Strega Award for her memoir Lost Bread, which was published in English in 2023 by Paul Dry Books. She has also translated Hungarian works into Italian, in particular poetry collections. Her work has been translated into French, Spanish, Dutch and German. She has long been a committed visitor to Italian schools to teach children about the horrors of the Holocaust. Bruck continues to publisher her work, and one of most recent works is a nonfiction book about her nascent friendship with Pope Francis, who visited Bruck at her home to honor her work as a witness and to ask forgiveness for the atrocities visited upon her, her family and the Jewish people.
For further reading about Edith, visit:
"Forgotten Writers of the Shoah," American Scholar
https://theamericanscholar.org/the-forgotten-writers-of-the-shoah/
To read Edith's poetry in translation:
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/edith-bruck-versi-vissuti/