Böcker av Fred Uhlman

The romantic forested landscape of southwest Germany is the setting for the birth of a friendship that will haunt sixteen-year-old Hans Schwarz for the rest of his life. Hans is Jewish, the son of a doctor who is confident that the rise of the Nazis is only 'a temporary illness' afflicting his beloved country. Hans's new classmate, Konradin von Hohenfels, is a dazzling young aristocrat whose mother keeps a portrait of Hitler on her dressing-table. Hans is immediately drawn to Konradin, and thrilled when a close bond forms between them, forged by common interests that set them apart from the other boys. But their loyalties are soon tested in ways they could not have imagined. Three decades later, from the vantage point of New York City, Hans once again confronts this life-shaping episode from his youth, through a stunning revelation that he stumbles upon by chance. In its story of friendship undone by History, Reunion combines the explosive compression of a fable with the emotional depth of an epic novel many times its length.

A daring novella about the loss of innocence in pre-war Germany.Reunion is the story of intense and innocent devotion between two young men growing up in "the soft, serene, bluish hills of Swabia," and the sinister (but all too mundane) forces that end both their friendship and their childhood.The year is 1932. Hans Schwartz is Jewish, the son of a Stuttgart doctor who asserts that the rise of the Nazis is "a temporary illness, something like measles which will pass off as soon as the economic situation improves." The Holocaust would be unthinkable for these characters, but of course it looms over the story: Hans's friend, the young Count Konradin von Hohenfels, has a mother who keeps a portrait of Hitler on her dresser. The two boys share their most private thoughts and trips to the countryside of southwest Germany, discuss poetry and the past and present of their country, and argue the existence of a benevolent God.The eventual disintegration of this cherished relationship foreshadows the fate of Europe's Jews-- but Uhlman doesn't end his story with neat polarities. Years later, exiled in America, Hans comes upon a revelation about von Hohenfels which provides a stunning denouement and leaves the reader recalling Uhlman's haunting, lyrical descriptions of the vineyards, opera houses, and dark forests of Württemberg."Hundreds of bulky tomes have now been written about the age when corpses were melted into soap to keep the master race clean; yet I sincerely believe that this slim volume will find its lasting place on the shelves."--Arthur Koestler, from the Introduction

'A brilliant work of art that deserves a far wider readership' Ian McEwanFROM THE PUBLISHERS OF STONER AND REVOLUTIONARY ROAD COMES REUNIONReunion is a little-known novel.