Translation
Click on the image or here to read an excerpt of my translation of Edith Bruck's 1974 short story collection, Two Empty Rooms, which was a finalist for Italy's highest literary honor, the Strega prize. The excerpt was graciously published by Jewish Currents magazine. The work, whose original title was Due Stanze Vuote, includes a stunning tale of a Holocaust survivor who returns to her native village in Hungary where her neighbors are astonished she is still alive but also chastened by her presence, which reminds them of what they did -- and didn't do -- during World War II.
**My English translation hasn't found a publisher yet and remains unpublished.** The collection is part of a body of work that -- in the words of Edith's friend, Primo Levi -- constitutes an "unforgettable testimony of her descent into the underworld." In America, however, she is virtually unknown. As I wrote in my preface to this excerpt, "her devoted translators" aim to change that.
My thanks to Nathan Goldman and the editorial staff at Jewish Currents for supporting this work.