Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, translated from the German by Anthea Bell, is a slow, meditative, and at times haunting account of a Jewish man who was sent away as a small child to England from Czechoslovakia when the Nazi threat loomed large. It is only late into his adulthood that he begins to explore his past, and unravel the mystery of what happened to him. Both the delay and the search are reflected upon in this beautiful novel chock full of entrancing imagery and humanity. But more than that, this book recalls a Europe that - though tragic in many ways - represented an entire civilization that is no longer accessible, some of which was also beautiful and (it turns out) fragile. This is an astonishing work that seems to call to us from a different time when time itself moved slower, and an insightful look at violence stretched over time.
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