![]() ![]() An old photograph survives, which according to family folklore is of his grandfather and the woman who saved him from the Nazis. Safron Foer's grandparents escaped the Holocaust in Ukraine. The books origin lies in the author's family history. ![]() The latter section is narrated not by Foer but by Alex, a (fictional) Ukrainian who's garbled English is used to great effect in the telling of the story. Alongside it, runs the fictitious version of a trip Foer took to the Ukraine while in college. Split roughly into two interwoven stories, the book simultaneously relates the fictitious history of the village of Trachimbrod, where Foer’s grandfather was raised and which was subsequently destroyed by the Nazis. It is a spectacular debut – exhilarating, linguistically brilliant, ambitiously constructed and very moving. One of the nice things about writing is you get to look at your unguarded self”Įverything is Illuminated is Safron Foer's first novel. ![]() I think we are often wrong about who we are. I wrote so many things that I did not know I cared about before I wrote the book – like being Jewish, like family history – then, you look at the evidence and it is like – I am not who I thought I was. “ One of the great things about writing is that you get a chance to see who you are. Then he went to the Ukraine with an old photograph, and found himself writing a book steeped in Jewish culture. Jonathan Safron Foer says he was never particularly interested in family history, and did not give much thought to his Jewishness. ![]()
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