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Nirgendwo in Afrika
Mit phantasievollen Bildern und einer wunderbaren Sprache voll Poesie überrascht Stefanie Zweig in ihrem Romandebüt über die Emigration ihrer Familie nach Kenia.
Die kleine Regina erlebt das Abenteuer der Emigration in das ferne Afrika an der Seite ihrer Eltern, die 1938 Oberschlesien verlassen müssen. Und dennoch trauern Walter und Jettel Redlich dieser Heimat nach, die si...more
Die kleine Regina erlebt das Abenteuer der Emigration in das ferne Afrika an der Seite ihrer Eltern, die 1938 Oberschlesien verlassen müssen. Und dennoch trauern Walter und Jettel Redlich dieser Heimat nach, die si...more
Paperback, 364 pages
Published
2002
by Wilhelm Heyne Verlag
(first published 1995)
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456)
Jun 07, 2009
Petra X
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biography-true-story,
travel-adventure
This book is not so much a novel as a fictionalised account of a time in the author's life where as a little girl, fleeing Nazi Germany and their comfortable middle-class life there, she and her family ended up as non-paid farmer tenants in Kenya.
The cover of the book is an almost-perfect visual synopsis to the story.
Read it and be enchanted.
The cover of the book is an almost-perfect visual synopsis to the story.
Read it and be enchanted.
My husband loves foreign language films, and we watched the movie of this book and enjoyed it. I located the book and found it to be superficially similar, yet in emotional content very different. I recommend both the film and the book. The family flees Germany, leaving behind relatives who die under Hitler's reign. We are familiar with stories of those who managed to come to the US, but the Redlich family relocates to a farm in Kenya, where their experiences are unique to that place and time. D...more
Wonderfully written memorior by the author of her time as a child in Africa, where her Jewish German parents had to emigrate just prior to WW2. However it is not written in the first person and there is an element of detachment that perhaps gives her some clarity and honesty in the portrayl. It was easy to identify with the family characters as each brought a different perspective to the unique and unfortunate situation of becoming a refugee. The most interesting character was Owuor, the housebo...more
Most of my bookclub did not enjoy this book, but I really really liked it. It is a translated book, originally in German, that makes the read a bit slow in terms of flowing nicely through the chapters. However, I just found it to be interesting enough that I would like to read the sequal at some point. It too was from a depressing era and although I tend to venture to more optimistic or fantasy type books, this was a great delve into two different cultures and a family trying to embrace a new cu...more
Zweig's memoir transgresses into the realm of the fantastic, magical time and warp-able reality. The Redlichs, a desolated Jewish family fleeing Nazi Europe, force the contrast between contexts into vibrant definition and color. Through their eyes we see confusions, conflicts of culture and country. We also see the Redlichs from the outside, through the eyes of tribesmen and ex-patriate Europeans. Owuor, the greatest friend of the family, brings a sustained note of tenderness to the tale. The sh...more
The Oscar-winning movie of the same name (Best Foreign Language Film 2002) pointed me to this excellent novel. Walter and Jettel and their daughter Regina are Jewish refugees forced by Hitler into precarious exile in rural Kenya, where they endure an often humiliating interaction with the colony's white settler community -- yet discover ongoing and deep friendships with various Kenyan Africans. This is especially true for Regina, who is soon speaking several indigenous languages as well as Swahi...more
Apr 20, 2010
Sarah
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
general-fiction,
historical-fiction
This book was originally written in German and the basis for the film of the same name which won the 2002 Academy Award for best foreign language film. I saw the movie several years ago and just came across the book. There are some crucial plot point differences, but both the book and the movie are enjoyable.
In the book, a Jewish family with strong ties to their community are forced to flee under the Nazis and find refuge in the British colony of Kenya. Walter, the father, gives up a job as an a...more
In the book, a Jewish family with strong ties to their community are forced to flee under the Nazis and find refuge in the British colony of Kenya. Walter, the father, gives up a job as an a...more
This book was a bit of a disappointment. While the story is heartrending, Zweig's prose was "clunky" and really made it hard to engage with the characters. Too many of the high dramatic points dissolve in silent tears, until I'm wondering if the characters have any other means of expression. May be partly the fault of the translation.
This is a story about a Jewish family who escaped Germany and went to Africa. It is told by the little girl and gives an interesting view as to what was happening. I like this book because it is about WWII, but gives a new angle that is not often reported.
I thought this was a ok book but not a great one. It is the story of a Jewish girl who moves from Germany to Kenya with her family just before the beginning of WWII in 1938. Her family lives there for 10 years before returning to Germany. The girl ends up feeling more African than she does German but her parents are unable to shake their pasts and what they lost. The book was made into an Academy Award winning foreign film in 2002.
A biographical tale told with the tenderness of african stories as were told by our ancestors while seated around bourne fires...captivating, heart warming, intruging.
J'ai vu le film 2-3 fois et c'est tout récemment que j'ai découvert qu'il y avait un livre. Si on recherche le dépaysement c'est le bon livre. ça donne envie d'aller faire un tour en Afrique. J'ai particulièrement aimé la partie après la fin de la 2e guerre mondiale. Comment les juifs survivants essayaient de retrouver leurs familles. Le déchirement, l'espoir.
Ma phrase préférée : "Le premier qui part en safari garde les yeux secs."
Ma phrase préférée : "Le premier qui part en safari garde les yeux secs."
Interesting reading about a family relocation as the Holocast claims so many of their friends and family.
Es ist eine wunderbare Geschichte aus einer schrecklichen Zeit
Good story but but poorly written....
Bevor ich das film sehe...
nostalgic
Jan 20, 2013
Champaign Public Library
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
cover-to-cover
I thought this was an ok book but not a great one. It is the story of a Jewish girl who moves from Germany to Kenya with her family in 1938 just before the beginning of WWII. Her family lives there for 10 years before returning to Germany. The girl ends up feeling more African than she does German but her parents are unable to shake their pasts and what they lost. The book was made into an Academy Award winning foreign film in 2002.
Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel, and their five-year-old daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm...more
Reco by Judy Yecies
Reco by Judy Yecies
I love both books, but the first "Nowhere in Africa" is the better one. I learned a few words Suaheli; I got an impression of living in Africa. I saw it with the eyes of a children, Regina Redlich and the best in the book are the intelligent written pages about what is home? What is love? How to trade foreign people and how to live with them and there traditions?
not that it's a bad book that i gave it 2 stars... it's my german knowledge that isn't enough to grasp the beauty of the words without opening my dictionary now and then. i still haven't read more than 2 chapters.
i watched the movie and the story is so beautiful. looking forward in reading more of it.
i watched the movie and the story is so beautiful. looking forward in reading more of it.
It was a good book, but the translation made it a bit tedious at times. Good enough for me to immediately start Somewhere in Germany A Novel.
Really good story and well told. Jewish family moves to Africa as they can't stay in Germany any longer because of anti - Jewish legal acts. It shows relations with other emmigrants and natives from three positions - a daughter, a wife and a husband.
Oct 30, 2007
Ethli (w-p)
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
żydzi,
based-on-facts
świetne, wciągające bardzo. Żydzi z Wrocławia (a więc niemieccy..) na emigracji w Afryce, żyjący wciąż przeszłością, i ich córka, której ojczyzną staje się Afryka.
I tried to read it in German a few years ago but it got too tiring. It's good in English. About Jews from Schlesia who flee Nazi Germany and start a new life in Kenya.
read other stories in the same era in Africa, immigrants from England and
Europe. Interesting stories. watched the movie by same title.
Europe. Interesting stories. watched the movie by same title.
Just reread these books, and enjoyed the magical quality of the narrative, the humor, and the family relationships all over again.
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Zweig is best known for her autobiographical novel, Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa, 1998), based on her early life in Kenya, which was filmed and won an Oscar in 2002 for "Best Foreign Film".[1] Her family, being Jewish, fled Nazi Germany, for Africa. They went from an urban life in Breslau (now Wrocław) to a farm in Kenya in 1938 when she was five. She attended an English boarding school...more
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May 28, 2009 03:55pm