"A colorful depiction of Rosenkranz's quest for identity. . . . An exquisite translation."—Choice
"Moses Rosenkranz's autobiography of his youth is a powerful testimony to the resilience of language and the imagery it can create. Dollenmayer's translation needs to be commended for its thoroughness."—Modern Austrian Literature
"Moses Rosenkranz came from impoverished roots in rural Bucovina and gained acclaim for his poetry only late in his life. He survived the same Rumanian fascist work camp as his fellow poet Paul Celan, only to be arrested by the Russians in 1947 and interned in the Gulag for ten years. With his recollections of rural life among Jews, Ukrainians, Rumanians, Poles, and Germans in Bucovina, Rosenkranz recaptures a vanished moment of cultural history."—Shofar
Description
Translated from the original Kindheit, written in 1958 and published in German in 2003, David Dollenmayer’s edition makes this remarkable work available to a much-deserved wider audience. Moses Rosenkranz came from impoverished roots in rural Bucovina and gained acclaim for his poetry only late in his life. He survived the same Rumanian fascist work camp as his fellow poet Paul Celan, only to be arrested by the Russians in 1947 and interned in the Gulag for ten years.
With his richly detailed recollections of rural life among Jews, Ukrainians, Rumanians, Poles, and Germans in Bucovina, a colorful parade of characters, and a remarkable eloquence, Rosenkranz recaptures a vanished moment of cultural history. The author’s unvarnished portraits of love, jealousy, and passion in his extensive family bring a fresh resonance to his poetry.
About the Author
Moses Rosenkranz was born in the Austro-Hungarian province of Bucovina in 1904. His first volume of poetry was published in Czernowitz in 1930. During the Second World War, he was interned in a Romanian fascist labor camp, escaped in 1944, was arrested by the Soviets in Bucharest in 1947, and spent ten years in the Gulag. In 1961, he fled Romania and settled in West Germany, where he died in 2003.
David Dollenmayer is professor of German at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and author of The Berlin Novels of Alfred Döblin. He has also translated works by Bertolt Brecht, Michael Kleeberg, Anna Mitgutsch, and Perikles Monioudis.
December 2007