Novel
And This Is the Light
והוא האור
Leah Goldberg · 1946
Synopsis
Summer 1931. Nora Krieger, twenty, a student of ancient Near Eastern archaeology in Berlin, returns for two weeks to the small town in Lithuania where her family lives, determined to show the young woman she has become. Her father, an architect once held in esteem, whom Lithuanian border guards tortured in 1919 and whom mental illness has led to hospital, comes home at the same moment; her mother has just obtained a divorce. Albert Arin also returns, a friend of her father's youth, settled for twenty-five years in California, with whom Nora has long corresponded without ever having seen him.
Context
The title comes from a poem by Moses ibn Ezra, whose verses serve as an epigraph. The novel, published in 1946 by Sifriat Poalim, was poorly received: critics reproached it for saying nothing important about Jewish youth. It bears clear autobiographical traits: the author's father had been tortured by Lithuanian guards in 1919 and never recovered, and her parents divorced in June 1931. Reissued in 2005 and adapted for the stage, it appeared in English in 2011, in a translation by Barbara Harshav, then in French in 2019.
Who it is for
A novel of about two hundred and fifty pages in French. It is worth knowing that Israel reads its author first and foremost as a poet, and that this book is considered autobiographical.
Prizes and reception
Poorly received by the public and the critics in 1946; reissued in 2005, adapted several times for the theatre, translated into English and French.