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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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A TALE OF ONE JANUARY

Albert Maltz

"A novel about an affirmation in man's ability, not only to survive, but to recreate himself, to rise above the suffering and viciousness through which he has passed." - The Times
Poland, January 1945. Two women and four men escape from a Nazi death march. Each is from a different background and a different country, but all have endured the horrors of imprisonment in Auschwitz. They find refuge in an abandoned factory, and suddenly they realize that they are no longer mere numbers. Even in their wild euphoria at being free, however, they can have no certainty about their future.

This is a tale of exploding joy within a hothouse of fear, a tale of human beings erupting into life after breaking free of the embrace of death - an unusual and moving tale that cements Albert Maltz's reputation as a compassionate observer of character and one of the finest storytellers of his generation.


Albert Maltz (1908-85) was an American playwright, fiction writer and screenwriter. He won the O. Henry Award in 1938. His novel The Cross and the Arrow about the German resistance to the Nazi Regime was distributed to 150,000 American soldiers during WWII. He worked on a series of films including Casablanca, until he was blacklisted during the mccarthyism era. He is best remembered today for his novels A Tale of One January and A Long Day in a Short Life.
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Book

Published 2023-04-20 by Alma Books - London (UK)

Book

Published 2023-04-20 by Alma Books - London (UK)

Comments

An extraordinary find - an unjustly suppressed American voice of the highest calibre. A brilliant writer with razor-sharp powers of observation and a sparse, true-to-life style. Six more Maltz's works will be published in the next two years, including an unpublished novel.

Evocative, accessible language dominates... Amid the pain and tragedy they face, there are surprising moments of lightness, and of laughter and sardonic gallows humor... the novel's revival is long overdue. It is a necessary addition to Holocaust literature.

The narration is from the point of view of two women, one French, the other Dutch, whom the Nazi have widowed. The style is touchingly simple... their hopes and fears of rehabilitation come across convincingly and his background details are painfully vivid.

Though it's a short novel, one becomes deeply involved... There is real anguish in the sudden tragedy that overtakes them in the end.