The Elixir of Immortality

Gleichmann, Gabi

ISBN 10: 1590515897 / ISBN 13: 9781590515891

Verlag: Other Press, LLC, 2013

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 1494137-6

Inhaltsangabe:

A mesmerizing debut novel that spans a thousand years of European and Jewish history seen through the beguiling members of the Spinoza family

Since the eleventh century, the Spinoza family has passed down, from father to son, a secret manuscript containing the recipe for immortality. Now, after thirty-six generations, the last descendant of this long and illustrious chain, Ari Spinoza, doesn’t have a son to whom to entrust the manuscript. From his deathbed, he begins his narrative, hoping to save his lineage from oblivion.

Ari’s two main sources of his family’s history are a trunk of yellowing documents inherited from his grandfather, and his great-uncle Fernando’s tales that captivated him when he was a child. He chronicles the Spinozas’ involvement in some of Europe’s most formative cultural events with intertwining narratives that move through ages of tyranny, creativity, and social upheaval: into medieval Portugal, Grand inquisitor Torquemada’s
Spain, Rembrandt’s Amsterdam, the French Revolution, Freud’s Vienna, and the horrors of both world wars.

The Elixir of Immortality blends truth and fiction as it rewrites European history through comic, imaginative, scandalous, and tragic tales that prove “the only thing that can possibly give human beings immortality on this earth: our ability to remember.”

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor: Gabi Gleichmann was born in Budapest in 1954 and raised in Sweden. After studies in literature and philosophy, he worked as a journalist and served as president of the Swedish PEN organization. Gleichmann now lives in Oslo and works as a writer, publisher, and literary critic. His first novel, The Elixir of Immortality, was sold to eleven countries prior to its first publication.

Michael Meigs is an arts journalist and theatre reviewer in Austin, Texas, who served more than thirty years as an economist and diplomat with the U.S. Department of State. In 2011 the American Scandinavian Foundation awarded him the annual ASF Translation Prize for his English version of The Dean by Lars Gustafsson.

Bibliografische Details

Titel: The Elixir of Immortality
Verlag: Other Press, LLC
Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
Einband: Softcover
Zustand: Good