Novel
Bitter Herbs
Het bittere kruid
Marga Minco · 1957
Synopsis
“It can't happen here,” says the father at the start of the war. The narrator, whose name is not given, tells in short episodes what then happens to her Jewish family, modelled on the author's own: the measures against the Jews that tighten one by one, the brother who goes into hiding with farmers near Aalsmeer, and the anxiety that gradually takes hold of the whole household.
Context
The book was published in 1957 by Bert Bakker, with the subtitle “a short chronicle”. Its author partly fictionalised her own story and gave the family in the narrative the exact composition of her own. It has been reprinted and translated a great many times: into English by Roy Edwards as early as 1960, into French by Louis Fessard in 1977, then into Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Who it is for
A short narrative made up of brief episodes, in a sober language without pathos. It can be read in French and in English.
Prizes and reception
Vijverberg Prize in 1958; regarded as a European classic on the Second World War, it remains on many school reading lists.