HOW DOES A CHILD GROW UP WHEN ALL HE KNOWS IS HE ISN'T ALLOWED TO KNOW ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST?

Award-winning Israeli Author, Amir Gutfreund, mixes humor and pathos in this, his first novel translated into English

"Even if I write an instruction manual for a washing machine, it will always contain humor, and it will always contain the Holocaust. It's a part of me."

So says award-winning Israeli author, Amir Gutfreund, and it is exactly such a combination of the mundane, the humorous, and the horrific that give Our Holocaust (ISBN 1592641393, $24.95, HC, March 2006) its unique power. Throughout this enthralling tale, part autobiography, part novel, Gutfreund uses humor and keen psychological insight to guide us through the topsy-turvy world of a child growing up within a family and neighborhood where all the authority figures he knows have been damaged by the greatest horror the world has ever known: the Holocaust.

With subtle comedy and exquisitely crafted humanity, Our Holocaust travels through the Haifa suburbs to a town where two Israeli children, a boy and a girl, are trying to figure out the world, just like all children the world over. But their world is vitally different from the one most children know. It is a world where anguished screams echo out from neighbors' houses, where penny-pinching is worshipped to the point of absurdity, where 'relatives' are mostly adopted, since the real ones were killed. A place where they are told, again and again, that they are "not old enough" to know about the single most important event in the lives of every adult they know. It's hardly a normal suburban upbringing. And yet it still contains the wonder and joy that informs the life of a child. They remain enthralled by the eccentricities of the vivid cast of characters that fill their lives, not least the roguish and parsimonious Grandpa Lolek and the saintly Grandpa Yosef. And despite the obstacles, they remain determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of "the Holocaust." In this award-winning work, Gutfreund explores the absurdity inherent in such an environment and how humanity lives on, even in the minds of those who can't believe it ever existed.

Amir Gutfreund was born in Haifa in 1963. Our Holocaust was his first novel, awarded the Buchman Prize. His second work, The Shoreline Mansions, won the prestigious Sapir Prize in 2003, and is forthcoming from The Toby Press next year. Gutfreund lives with his wife, Netta, a clinical psychologist, and their two children.