Synopses & Reviews
"A gorgeous work of the imagination about an act of imagination. The tone is pure, as strange as can be, and hypnotizing."Deborah Eisenberg,
Bomb magazine
The nameless narrator of Götz and Meyer, a Jewish schoolteacher, discovers Wilhelm Götz and Erwin Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, while researching his family tree. Overwhelmed by the horror of his discoveries as they become entangled with his own feverish imaginings, he organizes a class trip during which the teacher and his students connect with Belgrades lost souls in a sacred act of remembering.
"From two names, Albahari conjures imaginary souls whose lives represent all those whom history has forgotten."San Francisco Chronicle
"Ranks with the best of Holocaust literature."Chicago Tribune
"Has a resonance beyond its own times."Richard Eder, The Boston Globe
DAVID ALBAHARI is the prize-winning author of several collections of short stories and novels. He was for many years the editor-in-chief of Pismo, a magazine of world literature, and lived in Belgrade. He now lives in Calgary, Canada.
Review
PRAISE FOR
GÖTZ AND MEYER "
Götz and Meyer has a resonance beyond its own times."Richard Eder,
The Boston Globe"Albahari gives us a dazzling meditation on history, memory, identity and the nature of evil and on the hearts and minds of two ordinary men who cared more about their truck than about the lives of thousands of innocent human beings." Francine Prose, People
Synopsis
Götz and Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, are entrusted with an assignment, not a big one,” but one that requires efficiency.” Their task is to transport prisoners from a concentration camp near Belgrade in a hermetically sealed truck, in which they are asphyxiated.
The nameless narrator of Götz and Meyer, a Jewish schoolteacher, discovers Wilhelm Götz and Erwin Meyer while researching the deaths of his relatives. Overwhelmed by the horror of his discoveries as they become entangled with his own feverish imaginings, he organizes a class trip. The school bus becomes Götz and Meyers truck, and the teacher and his students merge with Belgrades lost souls in a sacred act of remembering.
Synopsis
Götz and Meyer, two noncommissioned SS officers, are entrusted with an assignment, "not a big one," but one that "requires efficiency." Their task is to transport five thousand women, children and elderly, one hundred at a time, from a concentration camp near Belgrade in a hermetically sealed truck, in which they are gassed. As Albahari's anonymous narrator, a teacher, obsessively pursues the truth of this systematic annihilation, he shares his findings with his students. Their school bus becomes that truck, and as the memory of Belgrade's lost Jewish souls is evoked, the students are bewildered. Their teacher, worn down as much by the task of making history come alive as by the toll his research has taken on him, is overwhelmed by the horror of his own imaginings.
A harrowing, masterfully written story, full of compassion, irony, and lyricism.
About the Author
DAVID ALBAHARI was born in Serbia and emigrated to Canada in 1994. He is the author of eleven novels and nine collections of short stories. His novel Götz and Meyer won the ALTA Translation Award and was a Barnes and Noble Discover selection.