David Bezmozgis

A debut collection of short stories renders the life of a Russian-Jewish family living in Toronto in vivid detail, covering twenty-three years in the life of Mark, from arguments with neighbors and humiliating social encounters, to his first sexual encounter with a cousin and the death of his grandfather. Reader's Guide. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

And Other Stories

Natasha

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2014 A New Yorker Favorite Book of 2014 New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice These incandescent pages give us one fraught, momentous day in the life of Baruch Kotler, a Soviet Jewish dissident who now finds himself a disgraced Israeli politician. When he refuses to back down from a contrary but principled stand regarding the settlements in the West Bank, his political opponents expose his affair with a mistress decades his junior, and the besieged couple escapes to Yalta, the faded Crimean resort of Kotler's youth. There, shockingly, Kotler encounters the former friend whose denunciation sent him to the Gulag almost forty years earlier. In a whirling twenty-four hours, Kotler must face the ultimate reckoning, both with those who have betrayed him and with those whom he has betrayed, including a teenage daughter, a son facing his own moral dilemma in the Israeli army, and the wife who once campaigned to secure his freedom and stood by him through so much. Stubborn, wry, and self-knowing, Baruch Kotler is one of the great creations of contemporary fiction. An aging man grasping at a final passion, he is drawn inexorably into a crucible that is both personal and biblical in scope. In prose that is elegant, sly, precise, and devastating in its awareness of the human heart, David Bezmozgis has rendered a story for the ages, an inquest into the nature of fate and consequence, love and forgiveness. The Betrayers is a high-wire act, a powerful tale of morality and sacrifice that will haunt readers long after they turn the final page.

A Novel

The Betrayers

Welcome to Rome. It's the summer of 1978, and the Krasnansky family are passing through. Alongside thousands of other Soviet refugees they await passage to a new home in the West. But escaping Communism is not so easy (especially when some of the Krasnansky insist on bringing it with them), and it's harder still when their sponsor in the USA lets them down and they find that they're no longer passing through at all. On the contrary, they're stuck. Welcome, then, to a tragic yet comic tale of reckless brothers and long-suffering sisters, ailing parents and innocent children, of love affairs and criminal liaisons, of wonderfully troubled family and a perpetually wandering people, and their epic search for a home . . . 'Colourful, sharply funny and deeply moving.' Financial Times 'A proper novel that bulges and pulses and thrums with life. I ended up loving it. The principal tone is wry - mainly comedic, sometimes melancholic, occasionally tragic, ironical, playful, charming. A rich and occasionally brilliant novel.' Observer'Alternately comic, sharp and sombre. It's impossible not to be caught up in the tangled web of its unforgettable case.' Daily Mail'Wonderfully uplifting' The Times

The Free World

The free world

Two men meet on a park bench in Jerusalem: a politician, on the eve of a controversial stand against his government, and a Mossad agent, sent to dissuade him with the threat of blackmail. Neither backs down. Escaping the furore he's unleashed, the politician and his lover head to Crimea and a resort on the Black Sea to lie low. But the fierce battle between political principles and personal loyalties has followed them to this faded Russian backwater, and a shocking encounter awaits them. In its depiction of a man whose principles are tested to the utmost extremes, The Betrayers cuts to the very heart of our troubled times. The Magic of fiction is that it is deeply caring about imaginary strangers, and Bezmozgis is a magician.' Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Lazarus Project 'This unforgettable novel squanders no words in its brilliant, deft depictions of love, of memory, of compassion - and, ultimately, despite its title, of loyalty.' Edith Pearlman, finalist for the National Book Award for Binocular Vision 'In this taut, fierce, forensically insightful novel, David Bezmozgis explores the frictions between goodness and kindness, public and private virtue, forgiveness and forgetting. Compulsive and profound.' A. D. Miller, Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Snowdrops

Free World

De verraders / druk 1

Now a Major Motion Picture A dazzling debut—and a publishing phenomenon—the tender, savagely funny collection from a young immigrant who has taken the critics by storm Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' First Book Prize for Canada and the Caribbean, the Toronto Book Award, Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction, Koffler Centre of the Arts' Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the City of Toronto Book Award, the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize for Fiction, and the Moment Magazine Fiction Award Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and the Governor General’s Award for Literature, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for Best First Collection of Short Fiction in the English Language Named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, a Los Angeles Times' 1 of the 25 Best Books of the Year, a New York Public Library's 25 Best Books to Remember, and a Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year Few readers had heard of David Bezmozgis before May 2003, when Harper's, Zoetrope, and The New Yorker all printed stories from his forthcoming collection. In the space of a few weeks, America thus met the Bermans—Bella and Roman and their son, Mark—Russian Jews who have fled the Riga of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams. Told through Mark's eyes, the stories in Natasha possess a serious wit and uniquely Jewish perspective that recall the first published stories of Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, not to mention the recent work of Jhumpa Lahiri, Nathan Englander, and Adam Haslett.

One of the most anticipated international debuts of 2004, DavidBezmozgis’s Natasha and Other Stories lives up to its buzz withnumerous award distinctions and a sheaf of praise from reviewers and readers.These are stories that capture the immigrant experience with wit and deepsympathy, recalling the early work of Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth. Anexquisitely crafted collection from a gifted young writer.

Natasha And Other Stories

National Bestseller Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year New York Times Notable Book of the Year Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Canada and Caribbean Region) Winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award, Fiction Category Winner of the Toronto Book Award Winner of the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize for Fiction Winner of the Danuta Gleed Literary Award Finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction Finalist for CBC’s Canada Reads Finalist for the Guardian First Book Award Finalist for the Borders Books and Music 2004 Original Voices Award Finalist for the LA Times Book Prize The Bermans—Bella, Roman and their son, Mark—are Russian Jews who fled the Riga of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams. Natasha and Other Stories is the chronicle of their search for a better life as they struggle to fit into a foreign urban landscape. Told through Mark’s eyes, these are stories filled with heart, verve and consequence. In “Tapka,” six-year-old Mark’s cocky game with a neighbour’s beloved dog turns into a tragi-comedy of life lessons learned. In the title story, a teenage Mark faces a stark, comical and ultimately searing introduction to first love at the experienced hands of his cousin, Natasha, an immigrant from the new Russia. And in “Minyan,” Mark and his grandfather watch as the death of an Odessan cab driver sets off a religious controversy among the residents of a Jewish old-people’s home. Often funny and always wise, this much-celebrated collection captures the immigrant experience with striking wit and deep sympathy.

Natasha and Other Stories

Eine Familie zwischen altem und neuem Leben – der gefeierte Debütroman von David Bezmozgis Sommer 1978: Wie für viele andere Juden, die aus der Sowjetunion fliehen, wird Rom für die Großfamilie Krasnansky zum Wartesaal, ein Vorzimmer zur freien Welt. Sechs Monate verbringen sie im Schwebezustand zwischen altem und neuem Leben, sechs Monate, in denen die Vergangenheit lange Schatten wirft und die Zukunft noch nicht begonnen hat. Ein zu Herzen gehender, witziger, melancholischer Roman, der die ideologischen Kämpfe und weltpolitischen Ereignisse des 20. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel dieser anrührenden Familie zeigt. Die Familie Krasnansky, das sind drei Generationen lettischer Juden aus Riga. Da ist der Großvater Samuil, ein alter Kommunist und Veteran der Roten Armee, der seine Heimat nur widerstrebend verlässt; Karl, sein ältester Sohn, ist darauf aus, alle Privilegien des Westens auszunutzen; Alec, sein jüngerer Sohn, begegnet dem Leben mit Witz und Leichtigkeit; Polina, Alecs aktuelle Ehefrau, hat ihre Familie verlassen, um mit den Krasnanskys in den Westen zu gehen. Sechs Monate verbringen sie in Rom, im Wartesaal zwischen altem und neuem Leben, sechs Monate voller hochfliegender Hoffnung und tiefer Melancholie, dem Leben zugewandt und dem Tod ins Auge sehend.In seinem ersten Roman thematisiert David Bezmozgis eine der zentralen Erfahrungen der globalisierten Gegenwart: die Erfahrung des Aufbruchs aus der Sicherheit der eigenen Kultur und Sprache in die Ungewissheit eines neuen Lebens. »Einer der besten jungen jüdischen Schriftsteller dieses Jahrhunderts« (The Times) »Ist es übertrieben, den jungen David Bezmozgis in einem Atemzug mit Philip Roth zu nennen? Sein Erzählungsband ›Natascha‹ von 2004 zeigte, dass er Roth’s Kaliber hat. Sein Roman ›Die freie Welt‹ trägt alles dazu bei, diesen Ruf zu festigen.« (The New York Times)

David Bezmozgis

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