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The day my grandfather was a hero

Hochgatterer, Paulus, 1961-2020
Books, Manuscripts
In October 1944, a 13-year-old girl arrives in a tiny farming community in Lower Austria, at some distance from the main theatre of war. She remembers very little about how she got there, it seems she has suffered trauma from bombardment. One night a few months later, a young, emaciated Russian appears, a deserter from forced labour in the east. He has nothing with him but a canvas roll, which he guards like a hawk. Their burgeoning friendship is abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a group of Wehrmacht soldiers in retreat, who commandeer the farm. Paulus Hochgatterer's intensely atmospheric, resonant novel is like a painting in itself, a beautiful observation of small shifts from apathy in a community not directly affected by the war, but exhausted by it nonetheless; individual acts of moral bravery which to some extent have the power to change the course of history.
Main title:
The day my grandfather was a hero / Paulus Hochgatterer ; translated by Jamie Bulloch.
Author:
Imprint:
London : MacLehose Press, 2020.
Collation:
112 pages ; 20 cm
Notes:
Translated from the German.
ISBN:
9780857059499 (pbk)
Dewey class:
833.92
LC class:
PT2668.O275
Language:
EnglishGerman
BRN:
2683012
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