Shortlisted
for the Strega Prize 2021 (Italy) Awarded the Strega Youth Prize 2021 (Italy)
"Brutal but hopeful . . . Sobering in its considerations and denunciations of ascendant fascist movements."
–Foreword Reviews
"Written with the emotional honesty and intimate authenticity that only a Holocaust survivor can claim, Edith Bruck's Lost Bread is a remarkable testimony to the author's human spirit and the blossoming of life after the Holocaust. Beginning in a small village in Hungary, Bruck tells the story of Ditke's unlikely survival through a ghetto and concentration camps before claiming and creating a new life in Israel and Italy. Lost Bread is a beautifully crafted, urgent novel that achieves the highest goals of Holocaust fiction: to leave the reader with more compassion and understanding for survivors of the Shoah. An unforgettable, triumphant account. "
–Anna Salton Eisen, author of Pillar of Salt: A Daughter's Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust and The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir (National Jewish Book Award Finalist)
"Lost Bread is Edith Bruck's 'long poem written by life, ' a minimalist fable that deftly distills the vileness of the Holocaust into heart-wrenching observations and moments that dance precariously between horror and hope. Writing in her adopted language–Italian–Bruck sheds the misery her native Hungarian tongue fated her to, allowing Bruck to find sense in survival, if not in her prior destiny. She finally speaks her name, makes peace with God, and graces our world with the gift of powerful, needful witness testimony, wielding prose honed as sharp as a diamond that cuts. A stunning addition to the Holocaust canon."
–Tara Lynn Masih, author of My Real Name Is Hanna (National Jewish Book Award Finalist)
"With every line of Lost Bread Edith Bruck entrusts to her readers the memories that the atrocity of the Shoah could not destroy. Memory is the salvation that defies horror. Memory keeps alive the unwavering love that a mother kneads into the bread she bakes for her children. This English translation of Bruck's forceful–yet delicate and immensely dignified–testimony preserves the intensity of the original Italian. When you slowly turn the last page of the book, you know that the tenderness and the poignancy of that lost bread will stay with you forever."
–Helena Sanson, Professor of Italian, History of Linguistics, and Women's Studies, University of Cambridge
"Lost Bread adds an essential chapter to the literature of the Holocaust. With a broad transnational sweep, it recounts a refugee's search for a new home, from country to country, until finally settling in Italy. In this elegant translation, the voice of Edith Bruck–Italy's most important witness together with Primo Levi–reaches the English reader with all its poignance and raw emotional power."
–Michael F. Moore, translator of The Drowned and the Saved, by Primo Levi, and The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni
"Lost Bread is on the same scale as
Primo Levi's If This Is a Man . . .
It is impossible, with each line, not to tremble."
–Le Point
(France)
"A testimony that teaches us to look at reality and discover fragments of
beauty and hope."
–
L'Osservatore Romano
(Vatican City)
"
Lost Bread is part of the great
autobiographical accounts of the Shoah and the deportation."
–
Agence France-Presse
"A poetic (and hate-free) journey through the Nazi horror gallery."
–
Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy)
"All Edith Bruck's life's work is a testimony, and ultimately the extreme,
desperate, word-filled effort to make the incomprehensible comprehensible."
–
Corriere della Sera Sette (Italy)
"A tale that you have to read until the last page, full of history, of life, of
love."
–
Furio Colombo
PRAISE FOR EDITH BRUCK'S OTHER BOOKS:
"Edith Bruck tells the story of the 'Lager' with the inherent strength of a wounded animal and in confronting the unbearable sadness of it closes the account and does not surrender to the void...Unforgettable testimony."
–
Primo Levi on
Who Loves You Like This
"With a style both warm and spare, Edith Bruck recreates the hardships of her existence as a Jewish child in Hungary before the Holocaust, the horrors of her time in the camps, and the protracted pain and disorientation of her lonely return to 'normal' life after the war. Her readers will marvel at her ability to perceive good as well as evil in those who preyed upon her. This is a beautiful book."
–
Susan Zuccotti, author of The Italians and the Holocaust, on
Who Loves You Like This "The availability of
Lettera in print will have a significant impact on the fields of Italian studies, women's studies, gender studies, Jewish studies, Holocaust studies, and comparative literature."
―
Italica on
Letter to My Mother
