Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Kahn & Engelmann: A sneak peak

It pains me to say that I received a call today to say that Kahn & Engelmann should arrive in hand by tomorrow morning. That Hans missed seeing the publication of the English edition of his novel by a mere few dozen hours. It was one of the things I most looked forward to this Spring: putting a copy of the book in his hands. He was so pleased by the initial responses to the book -- the starred Quill & Quire review, the Harbourfront launch, much else besides -- and we expected so much from this book ...

We still do, of course, and will be doing everything we can to put K&E out in front of as many readers as we possibly can.

As we did a week or so ago with Terry's forthcoming Thought You Were Dead, we offer here a sneak peak of Eichner's Kahn & Engelmann, and hope that you'll enjoy it as much as we have.

Kahn&Engelmann Kahn&Engelmann biblioasis A critical and commercial success in German, Kahn & Engelmann tells the story of a Jewish family from rural Hungary, their immigration to Vienna in the great days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, their loves, business ventures and failings, and their eventual tragic destruction. Narrated by Peter Engelmann, who wishes only to forget his past, this highly original novel recreates a vanished Vienna with salty humour and humanity. In a voice which is appealing without being sentimental, Peter describes his escape from the Nazis through snowy woods, his attempts to start a new life in England and Canada, and his decision to immigrate to Israel. Written by an eminent scholar, himself a survivor of Nazism, Kahn & Engelmann is both an entertaining novel and a major work of Holocaust literature.

Kahn & Engelmann is a lively and affectionate story … one of the finest novels I’ve read all year. – Hans-Harald Müller, Literaturkritik

Only rarely does a novel depict the atmosphere of Jewish life as authentically as Hans Eichner’s Kahn & Engelmann. – Evelyn Adunka, Literaturhaus

Hans Eichner was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria in 1921. He escaped from the Nazis to Belgium, then England. After earning a Ph.D. at the University of London, Eichner immigrated to Canada, where he became Head of the German Department at the University of Toronto and a widely published author of books on German Romantic literature. Hans Eichner now lives in Rockwood, Ontario. Kahn & Engelmann, his first novel, was a critical and commercial success in Austria and Germany.
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