Katschen & The Book Of Joseph

by Yoel Hoffmann, David Kriss, Alan Preister

Katschen & The Book of Joseph makes an amazing American debut for Israeli writer Yoel Hoffmann. Intensely moving, the two novellas display the entirely original poetry and hypnotic verve of Hoffmann's atomized language, which Rosmarie Waldrop has called "utterly enchanting--it is like nothing else." "The Book of Joseph" tells the tragic story of a widowed Jewish tailor and his son in 1930s Berlin. "Katschen" gives an astounding child's-eye view of a boy orphaned in Palestine. "When Yoel Hoffmann's books first appeared in the late 1980s," Professor Nili Gold has commented, "they seemed to have tunneled their way into Israel from afar....Technically of the same generation (the 'Generation of the State') as canonical realist writers like A.B. Yehoshua and Amos Oz, he didn't begin to publish fiction until his late forties, and in many ways he represents a generation of one, at the edge of the Israeli avant-garde."

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Jewish

162 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Yoel Hoffmann (23 June 1937– 25 August 2023) was an Israeli Jewish contemporary author, editor, scholar and translator.

Reviews

[Jared Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Before my eyes," said Ernst suddenly, "there is glass and a bird pecking at it all the time."

[Miki Herscovici · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was nothing short of amazing. One of the best things I have ever read. It is so genre defying and different, that I'm at a loss as to how to label it. Better not label it at all, just read it.

[Arlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The goodreads description does it justice, probably will rate higher on a future re read

[Neta Asher Goshen · Rating 2 out of 5]

קצכן-5
כל השאר-2

[Un Moine Vexé]

Delightful and disturbing in equal measure.