Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home
Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home
Wolff, Alexander
product information
Condition: New, UPC: 9780802158260, Publication Date: Tue, March 1, 2022, Type: Paperback ,
join & start selling
description
2

A sweeping portrait of the turmoil of the twentieth century and the legacy of immigration, as seen through the German-American family of the celebrated book publisher Kurt Wolff

A literary gem researched over a year the author spent living in Berlin, Endpapers excavates the extraordinary histories of the author's grandfather and father: the renowned publisher Kurt Wolff, dubbed "perhaps the twentieth century's most discriminating publisher" by the New York Times Book Review, and his son Niko, who fought in the Wehrmacht during World War II before coming to America.

Kurt Wolff was born in Bonn into a highly cultured German-Jewish family, whose ancestors included converts to Christianity, among them Baron Moritz von Haber, whose desire to demand satisfaction in a duel sparked off bloody antisemitic riots. Always bookish, Kurt became a publisher at twenty-three, setting up his own firm and publishing Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Karl Kraus, and many other authors whose books would soon be burned by the Nazis. Fleeing Germany in 1933, a day after the Reichstag fire, Kurt and his second wife, Helen, sought refuge in France, Italy, and ultimately New York, where in a small Greenwich Village apartment they founded Pantheon Books. Pantheon would soon take its own place in literary history with the publication of Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago, and as the conduit that brought major European works to the States. But Kurt's taciturn son Niko, offspring of his first marriage to Elisabeth Merck, was left behind in Germany, where despite his Jewish heritage he served the Nazis on two fronts. As Alexander Wolff visits dusty archives and meets distant relatives, he discovers secrets that never made it to the land of fresh starts, including the connection between Hitler and the family pharmaceutical firm E. Merck, and the story of a half-brother Niko never knew.

With surprising revelations from never-before-published family letters, diaries, and photographs, Endpapers is a moving and intimate family story, weaving a literary tapestry of the perils, triumphs, and secrets of history and exile.

reviews

Be the first to write a review

member goods

No member items were found under this heading.

notems store

101 Things You Didn't Know ...

by Hackney, Ryan

Paperback /Paperback

$7.46

A Chinese Garden in Germany

by Zhenshan, Zhang

Hardcover /Hardcover

$26.96

Possessed by the Devil: The ...

by Sneddon, Andrew

Paperback /Paperback

$24.71

listens & views

AUTUMN LEAVES (JMLP) (HYBR) (RMST) ...

by GREAT JAZZ TRIO

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$27.99

COYOTE'S CALLING

by GORDON,JAMES

COMPACT DISC

$15.25

MANANA NADIE SE ACUERDA (ARG)

by GUEDE LUCHO

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$14.99

Return Policy

All sales are final

Shipping

No special shipping considerations available.
Shipping fees determined at checkout.
promoting relevance through notable postings ]
share it, buy it, sell it ]

A notem is a post that highlights an experience, idea, topic of interest, an event ... whatever a member believes worthy of discussion. Each notem becomes a pathway by which to make meaningful connections.

notems is a free, global social network that rewards members by the number and quality of notems they post.

notemote® © . Privacy Policy. Developed by Hartmann Software Group