In the Land of the Postscript: The Complete Short Stories of Chava Rosenfarb

by Chava Rosenfarb, Goldie Morgentaler (Translator)

With the addition of two stories, namely, "The Masterpiece," "April 19th" and "Letters to God," this collection makes available in English for the first time a complete selection of Chava Rosenfarb's short stories all in one place. All the stories in this collection deal with the afterlife of Holocaust survivors in North America. Since Chava Rosenfarb was herself a Holocaust survivor who settled in Montreal after the war, she speaks in these stories from personal experience at the same time as she allows her imagination to inhabit the minds of characters far different from herself. Fiction. History. Jewish Studies.

Genres: Short Stories, Historical Fiction, Jewish, Fiction, Holocaust

299 pages, Paperback

Published May 14, 2023

About the author

Holocaust survivor and Jewish-Canadian author of Yiddish poetry and novels

Reviews

[Caele · Rating 5 out of 5]

What beautiful and painful complexity and depth. Chava has lived many lives and has shared those with us through her powerful stories.

[Amelia Colbdorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow. I was avoiding reading this book in its entirety because I had read only royt feygele and assumed they would all be just as haunting. Certainly not a light read, but really impossible to put down. The characters are fucked up and wonderful people and sometimes unkind and deceitful and just so so complex in a way that really does justice to survivors. I see so much of what I knew of my grandma and what my mom told me about both of her parents in these stories. So so Jewish and familiar. There’s certainly some weird outdated language, but I’m willing to forgive that given the circumstances and the fact that it is in translation. Just spectacular. Zol zayn yidn chava rosenfarb!

[Rina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though short stories have not been a favorite genre I can say I've come to appreciate them, or some. This is not one of those. Though taken from the author's real life experience as a Holocaust survivor, I found these short stories are somewhat bizarre and barely likeable no less enjoyable. Then again, the author probably didn't mean them to be. So she got her point across. It's not like I'm unaware that survivors must bear some horrid memories. It's just that these were weird, to me. Going to a discussion of same next week. I'm hoping to get more learned.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read four of the stories, as part of a short-term reading group.

[Maxim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite Story: "Last Love", a brilliant take on Pygmalion

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the second story, and read a few others and did not enjoy them.

Short stories are like poetry in that even good authors' anthologies often feature a range of hits and misses. This volume is no exception.