Poland, a Green Land

A Novel

By: Aharon Appelfeld

Narrated by: Gilli Messer

A Tel Aviv shopkeeper visits his parents’ Polish birthplace in an attempt to come to terms with their complex legacy—and is completely unprepared for what he finds there.

Yaakov Fine’s practical wife and daughters are baffled by his decision to leave his flourishing dress shop for a ten-day trip to his family’s ancestral village in Poland. Struggling to emerge from a midlife depression, Yaakov is drawn to Szydowce, intrigued by the stories he'd heard as a child from his parents and their friends, who would wax nostalgic about their pastoral, verdant hometown in the decades before 1939. The horrific years that followed were relegated to the nightmares that shattered sleep and were not discussed during waking hours.

When he arrives in Krakow, Yaakov enjoys the charming sidewalk cafes and relaxed European atmosphere, so different from the hurly burly of Tel Aviv. And his landlady in Szydowce—beautiful, sensual Magda, with a tragic past of her own—enchants him with her recollections of his family. But when Yaakov attempts to purchase from the townspeople the desecrated tombstones that had been stolen from Szydowce’s plowed-under Jewish cemetery, a very different Poland emerges, one that shatters Yaakov’s idyllic view of the town and its people, and casts into sharp relief the tragic reality of Jewish life in Poland—past, present, and future.

In this novel of revelation and reconciliation, Aharon Appelfeld once again mines lived experience to create fiction of powerful, universal resonance.

©2023 Aharon Appelfeld (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Appelfeld was one of the most revered Israeli writers of his generation . . . Interestingly, it was his affinity with the minimalist European masters of ‘intellectual displacement’—Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Albert Camus—that became his most notable literary trait. Poland, a Green Land is written with his characteristic economy of language and powerful imagery . . . With deep wisdom and sensitivity, it explores the tragic consequences of denying one’s inner truth. Appelfeld’s unique literary achievement is his ability to also include the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity and their descendants in this psychological link between past and present.” —Elena Lappin, The Washington Post

“More than any other writer in Hebrew (his adopted language), Aharon Appelfeld, a master of understatement who died in 2018, conjures the obscene horror of the Shoah, and he does so without graphic scenes of crematoria or even using the word ‘Nazi’ . . . In the spare prose of Stuart Schoffman’s translation, Yaakov Fine’s journey takes on the authority of a fable.” —Steven G. Kellman, Forward

“An enthralling novel suffused with quiet brilliance and subtle power . . . Appelfeld’s fluid, limpid, trick-free prose contains pockets of beauty, and he routinely captives with various tales and set-piece scenes . . . What starts out as a straightforward pilgrimage with the opportunity for fact finding and soul searching soon turns into a complex journey of self-discovery filled with dark revelations and painful home truths . . . Skillfully translated by Stuart Schoffman . . . this is a slow burn of a book, and it is all the better for it . . . it smolders with urgency and potency.” —Malcolm Forbes, The Washington Examiner

I am gladvi found this book

On many levels this book was just what I needed today. Family history, rebellion and regret, misunderstanding, grief, loss, loveless marriage. Courage, bravery...

Fascinating portrayal of the holocaust experience of a second generation person

An engaging and touching portrayal of the holocaust experience through the eyes of a son of holocaust survivors . It shines the light on the trauma that second generation and perhaps third generation of post holocaust survivors are experiencing today. The reliving of his parents experience through set of encounters with today’s Poles is a masterpiece. The author points out a strange albeit beautiful kinship that develops between the protagonist and one of the females Poles he meets. This short lived encounter is Pointing out to the cultural affinities that may have been preserved between jews and gentles despite the holocaust , It also points out that not all Poles were Jew haters, although the uneducated poles carry their anti jewish biases to this very day. The reading experience has been augmented by the artful narration by Gili Messer. Her performance brings to life the author’s skillful sensitive depiction of Jewish life in the diaspora and the general attitude of Polish uneducated people towards strangers and people that are different. Gili’s deep understanding of the transcultural difference including language and intonation of expressions are unique .

Perspective

Gives great insight on what it means to be Jewish! I’m not Jewish and feel this was a fresh, sensitive and eye opening story!