Sefer

by Ewa Lipska

Poetic, witty, and ever so faintly surreal, Sefer delicately explores the legacy of the Holocaust for the postwar generation, a generation for whom a devastating history has grown distant, both temporally and emotionally. The novel’s protagonist, Jan Sefer, is a psychotherapist living in Vienna—someone whose professional life puts him in daily contact with the traumas of others but who has found it difficult to address his own family background, especially his memories of his father. During a two-week trip to his father’s birthplace, Kraków—a visit he has long postponed—he begins to sort out some of his feelings and to connect with a past the memory of which is swiftly disintegrating. Much like memory itself, Sefer speaks to us obliquely, through the juxtaposition of images and vignettes rather than through the construction of a linear narrative. With its fragmentary structure and its preference for hints rather than explanations, the novel belongs to the realm of the postmodern, while it also incorporates subtle elements of magical realism.
One of Poland’s best-known poets, Ewa Lipska is today a major figure in European literature. In their translation of Sefer , Lipska’s first novel, translators Barbara Bogoczek and Tony Howard deftly capture the poet’s unmistakable voice—cool and precise, gently ironic, and deeply humane.

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Ewa Lipska, born October 8, 1945, in Kraków is a Polish poet from the generation of the Polish "New Wave." Collections of her verse have been translated into English, Czech, Danish, Dutch, German and Hungarian. She lives in Vienna and Kraków.

The Adam Mickiewicz Institute commented: "While her verse may have some connections with politics, it always documents concrete personal experiences without reaching for grand generalizations. As it unmasks the language of propaganda, her poetry also indicates the weaknesses of language in general as an instrument of human perception and communication"

Reviews

[Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually I read the English translation of this, but that's not in the Goodreads database. Review to follow...

[Vivian Zenari · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, I love this book. I don't know what it is. Perhaps the tiny units (not really chapters) are like little jewels strung on an assymetrical necklace. Perhaps I harbouring a fantasy of a cultured Central Europe that this book fulfills. I liked not knowing what was going to happen next and ultimately not caring too much what happens next but savouring the moment at the place I was at. I just loved it.