Novel
A Guest for the Night
אורח נטה ללון
Shmuel Yosef Agnon · 1939
Synopsis
In the aftermath of the First World War, a writer settled in Jerusalem returns to Szybusz, the small town in Galicia where he was born, and arrives on the eve of Yom Kippur. The town is in ruins: collapsed houses, scattered families, the young gone, cripples in the streets, and the old house of study empty. He is entrusted with its key; he comes to study there every day, the stove is lit again, others follow him and a small group forms around him once more. For months, he listens to the inhabitants tell him of their bereavements and misfortunes.
Context
Agnon had gone to Buczacz in August 1930 for a week; the novel stretches this stay over nearly a year, and Szybusz is the name he gives to his native town. He worked on it for a year and a half. The text first appeared as a serial in Haaretz, in one hundred and thirty-nine instalments, from October 1938 to April 1939, then in volume form from Schocken in September 1939, as Germany was invading Poland.
Who it is for
A long novel in Hebrew, told in the first person, translated into French under the title L'Hôte de passage.
Prizes and reception
The Nobel committee regarded it as Agnon's greatest achievement as a novelist; the book won him the Bialik Prize in 1950.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.