"A stunning debut."-Die Zeit

"Vennemann intertwines the tenderest memories of childhood and friendship with the denial that the murderers have already entered the house. Who would have thought the novel capable of this profoundly original way to examine anti-Semitism and the formation of atrocity?"-Lore Segal

It begins like a classic German fable: Children from the rural village of Jedenew, Poland, get together late at night to play together in the dark woods. But their game is to pretend they live in the imaginary world of the Jedenew that came before them-when it wasn't occupied by the Nazis, and their Jewish friends weren't mysteriously disappearing one by one.

Kevin Vennemann's writing-already a sensation with the major publishing houses of Europe-is evocative of W.G. Sebald for its lyrical style and bold intelligence. The innovative simultaneous plot-consisting of the real andimaginative world of the children-has earned comparison to the piercing analogies of Kafka. But the accessible and absorbing narrative of Near Jedenew, as well as its beautifully lush prose, signals the emergence of one of the most original and masterful young writers to appear in decades.

Kevin Vennemannwas born in 1977 in Germany and today lives in Vienna and Paris. Melville House will publish his second novel, Mara Kogoj, in 2008.

"Setting this haunting, stream-of-consciousness tale in a generic rural Polish village (jeden in German means 'every'), Vennemann writes in the first-person voice of an unnamed 16-year-old Jewish girl, who recounts the German army's arrival there at the beginning of WWII. Up to that point, her family of non-practicing Jews has been living among the Polish farmers in an uneasy dtente. Beloved elder brother Marek, an apprentice to his father's veterinarian practice, has converted to Catholicism in order to marry Antonina, pregnant with their daughter, Julia. But when the Germans take over the village houses, the Polish villagers turn into a drunken, raging mob, and the family takes refuge in their tree house. Tales of love and adventure recounted countless times by the father and Marek sustain the family as they anxiously await their fate, while a foreboding sense of fried circuitry and doom infuses their telling. Masterly and chilling, Vennemann's work captures a small moment of humanity within a larger machinery of evil and hate." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

It begins like a classic German fable: Children from the rural village of Jedenew, Poland, get together late at night to play together in the dark woods. But their game is to pretend they live in the imaginary world of the Jedenew that came before them-when it wasn't occupied by the Nazis, and their Jewish friends weren't mysteriously disappearing one by one.

Kevin Vennemann's writing-already a sensation with the major publishing houses of Europe-is evocative of W.G. Sebald for its lyrical style and bold intelligence. The innovative simultaneous plot-consisting of the real and imaginative world of the children-has earned comparison to the piercing analogies of Kafka. But the accessible and absorbing narrative of Close to Jedenew, as well as its beautifully lush prose, signals the emergence of one of the most original and masterful young writers to appear in decades.

Kevin Vennemann was born in 1977 in Germany. His writing has generated comparisons to Sebald, Kafka and Borges, and he has been hailed for his unstinting look at German history. He lives in Vienna. Melville House will publish his second novel, Mara Kogoj, next year.