Aharon Appelfeld was born in 1932 in Czernovitz, Bukovina (now part of the Ukraine). At the age of nine he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, from which he escaped. Having witnessed the murder of his mother by the Nazis and having been separated from his father, Appelfeld hid in the forests. He eventually joined the Soviet army as a kitchen boy, immigrating to Palestine in 1946.

Appelfeld has been exploring the existential themes of the Holocaust for more than forty years. The author of twelve internationally acclaimed novels, including Badenheim 1939, The Iron Tracks, Unto the Soul, The Retreat, and The Age of Wonders. Appelfeld's depth of insight and distinctively stark, elegant style have won him recognition as one of the world's great writers. Appelfeld lives in Jerusalem.

Click on a selection below to hear a moving audio webcast interview
with author Aharon Appelfeld:

Photo: Hadar Shtull-Trauring

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Click on a topic:
1.  The fundamentals of my writing
2.  I was surrounded by many wonderful people
3.  It is a privilege to be a Hebrew writer
4.  The religious tune that has been lost...
 5.  I am surrounded with Jewishness
 6.  Creativity is a permanent memory
 7.  The Holocaust was my childhood
 8.  I am not a Holocaust writer
 9.  Healing means to become a Jew again
10. The purpose for a writer is to bring hope
11. I am the Israeli writer
12. You are drinking coffee in a coffee house and so you are connected...

IRON TRACKS How does one live after surviving injustice? What satisfaction comes from revenge? Can the past be left behind? The Iron Tracks is a haunting exploration of one survivor's complex, wrenching inner world. Ever since he was released from a concentration camp forty years earlier, Erwin Siegelbaum has been obsessively riding the trains of postwar Austria. His days are filled with drink, his nights with brief love affairs and the torments of his nightmares. What keeps him sane is his mission to collect the menorahs, kiddush cups, and holy books that have survived their vanished owners. And the hope that one day he will find the Nazi officer who murdered his parents–and have the strength to kill him. A short selection from The Iron Tracks Guide questions for discussion of The Iron Tracks

 

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Other books by Aharon Appelfeld (see introductions and selections): For Every Sin The Retreat The Conversion Unto the Soul Badenheim 1939 The Age of Wonders Tzili: The Story of a Life To the Land of the Cattails The Immortal Bartfuss The Healer Katerina Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth Purchase any of Aharon Appelfeld's books online [Back to JRGO page]