Return to Latvia

Name: Return to Latvia
Brand: Unknown
SKU: 9781954404106
Price: 37.99 NZD
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By Marina Jarre

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4.08

( 49 ratings, 10 reviews)

Summary

Return to Latvia by Marina Jarre is a poignant memoir exploring the author's journey to her birthplace, Latvia, after years of separation. The narrative delves into themes of identity, memory, and the lasting impact of historical events on personal lives, as Jarre seeks to understand her heritage and complex family history. With a reflective and introspective approach, the book navigates the terrains of belonging and loss.
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Format: Paperback / softback

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Return to Latvia

$37⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

If you appreciate deeply introspective journeys through personal history, this memoir might resonate with you. It explores themes of identity, memory, and the complex emotions tied to revisiting one's roots. Those intrigued by reflective narratives that delve into family and cultural heritage will likely find this deeply moving.

A rediscovered Italian author returns to her Baltic homeland to come to terms with widespread Latvian complicity in the massacre of Jews that consumed the father she lost in childhood.

Description

"A harrowing, culturally rich memoir." - Kirkus Reviews

Building upon her celebrated autobiography Distant Fathers, Italian author Marina Jarre returns to her native Latvia for the first time since she left as a ten-year-old girl in 1935. In Return to Latvia—a masterful collage-like work that is part travelogue, part memoir, part ruminative essay—she looks for traces of her murdered father whom she never bid farewell to.

Jarre visits the former Jewish ghetto of Riga and its southern forest, where tens of thousands were slaughtered in a 1941 mass execution by Nazi death squads with active participation by Latvian collaborators. Here she attempts to reconcile herself with her past, or at least to heal the wounds of a truncated childhood.

Piecing together documents and memories, Return to Latvia explores immense guilt, repression, and the complicity of Latvians in the massacres of their Jewish neighbours, highlighting vast Holocaust atrocities that occurred outside the confines of death camps and in plain view.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Return to Latvia by Marina Jarre is celebrated for its insight into shared history and the shadows of the Holocaust, exploring themes of generational trauma and cultural memory. Reviewers commend its lush prose and multifaceted narrative style, encompassing memoir, travelogue, and philosophical inquiry. Ann Goldstein's translation is praised for beautifully capturing Jarre's poignant reflections on identity, family, and the search for truth amidst historical atrocities.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781954404106

Publisher: New Vessel Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 23 February 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: New Vessel Press

Contributors:

Translated by Ann Goldstein
Translated by Ann Goldstein

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 133.0mm

Height: 203.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 240

Collections

Biography & Memoir Marina Jarre Non-Fiction

About the Author

Marina Jarre (1925-2016) was born in Riga to a Latvian Jewish father and an Italian Protestant mother. She spent her childhood in Latvia until 1935, when her parents separated and she moved to Italy to live with her maternal grandparents, among devout, French-speaking Protestants in a community southwest of Turin. Jarre wrote over a dozen novels, short story collections and nonfiction works. Ann Goldstein has translated The Neapolitan Novels and other works by Elena Ferrante, as well as writings by Primo Levi, Giacomo Leopardi and Pier Paolo Pasolini. She is a former editor at The New Yorker.

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