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Lublin
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 3 reviews on
Winner of the Wingate Literary Prize
Longlisted for the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize, United States and Canada
Elya is the lad with the vision, and Elya has the map. Ziv and Kiva aren't so sure. The water may run out before they find the Village of Lakes. The food may run out before the flaky crescent pastries of Prune Town. They may never reach the Village of Girls (how disappointing); they may well stumble into Russian Town, rumoured to be a dangerous place for Jews (it is). As three young boys set off from Mezritsh with a case of bristle brushes to sell in the great market town of Lublin, wearing shoes of uneven quality and possessed of decidedly unequal enthusiasms, they quickly find that nothing, not Elya's jokes nor Kiva's prayers nor Ziv's sublime irritatingness, can prepare them for the future as it comes barrelling down to meet them. Absurd, riveting, alarming, hilarious, the dialogue devastatingly sharp and the pacing extraordinary, Lublin is a journey to nowhere that changes everything it touches.
Book Details
- Publisher: And Other Stories
- Publish Date: Apr 2nd, 2024
- Pages: 160
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 7.70in - 5.00in - 0.80in - 0.45lb
- EAN: 9781913505943
- Categories: • Literary• Jewish• Humorous - General
About the Author
Manya Wilkinson is a Jewish New Yorker who has
lived in the North of England for over twenty years. Formerly a senior MA
lecturer on prose and scriptwriting at Newcastle University, she is currently
teaching prose workshops for Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts and Mslexia magazine. Her first novel, Ocean Avenue, was published by Serpent's
Tail, and her short stories by Comma Press. Her radio dramas have been
broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Afternoon Play, Saturday Drama, Writing the Century,
and Woman's Hour.
Critics’ reviews
Praise for this book
"With its matter-of-fact approach to depicting antisemitic violence, its three guileless main characters and its artful folding-together of fable, history and Jewish joke-making, this is a story for the moment and for the ages [...] Lublin is more cogent and unflinching in its exploration of Jewish experience than Gyorgy Spiro's sprawling historical novel Captivity, and also more moving than Cormac McCarthy's alpha-male dystopia The Road in its rendering of ordinary human relationships pressured by imminent ruin."--Randy Boyagoda, New York Times
"Elya is determined to make it to Lublin no matter the cost. His dark jokes provide some of the novel's most powerful moments. Just as effective are the moments when the narrative jumps into the future to reveal villagers' ultimate fates in a world moving fast toward the Holocaust [...] A tale that uses humor to counterbalance tragedy asks if it's too late to go back home." --Kirkus Reviews
"Lublin is a mini masterpiece: simple, straightforward, narratologically complex, funny, sad and profoundly satisfying. If you read a finer novel this year--honestly, seriously?--well, lucky you." --Ian Sansom, Times Literary Supplement
"Often very funny, this is an original, compelling work of fiction." --Nick Rennison, Sunday Times
"A delicious little book." --Jenni Frazer, Jewish Chronicle
"Lublin has a truly individual flavour. Beautifully written, well-paced, rhythmical, sad, funny. It was a real pleasure to read it." --David Almond
"Mercurial, hilarious, terrifying, a sustained song to the lost, Lublin is a masterpiece. Prepare to be enchanted." --Sinéad Morrissey
"A true boy's own adventure with a deep heart set against a backdrop of ferocious world events, Lublin will charm and devastate readers in equal measure with its compulsive, funny and moving prose. Manya Wilkinson has given us a fable-like story whose characters live and breathe through the ages to speak to us of childhood dreams and the inequities of war today." Preti Taneja
Praise for Manya Wilkinson's Ocean Avenue