Description
Book SynopsisOriginally published in weekly instalments,
Nine Suitcases is the Hungarian writer Béla Zsolt''s harrowing memoir of his experiences in the ghetto of Nagyvarad and as a forced labourer in the Ukraine. Written with exceptional freshness and a devastating blend of angry despair and cool detachment, Zsolt - one of the earliest writers on the Holocaust - provides not only a rare insight into Hungarian fascism, but a shocking exposure of the cruelty, indifference, selfishness, cowardice and betrayal of which human beings - the victims no less than the perpetrators - are capable in extreme circumstances. Interspersed with moments of grotesque farce, grim irony and occasional memories of human kindness, Zsolt''s nightmarish but meticulously realistic chronicle of smaller and larger crimes against humanity is as riveting as it is horrifying.
Trade Review[A] heartbreaking memoir... Unbearably immediate -- Laurence Phelan * Independent on Sunday *
A sombre yet strangely beautiful account, devoid of sentimentality...the recent publication of his work in English is long overdue -- Phil Baker * Sunday Times *
Remarkable...exceptional -- Caroline Moorehead * Times Literary Supplement *
This is by far the best book I've come across on the subject of the extermination of Hungary's Jews -- Tibor Fischer * Guardian *
Very, very rarely you read something that knocks the breath out of you... This masterpiece does -- Carole Angier * Literary Review *
