Bernhard

First edition in English. 8vo. [x, 177]pp. Quarter-bound olive green cloth over fern green paper-covered boards, stamped in silver to spine. Book and jacket design by Semadar Megged. Translated from the Hebrew by Alan Treister with Eddie Levenston.

Author's third work of fiction and first novel. Written in 172 numbered paragraphs, and dotted with German phrases translated in the margins, it follows the enigmatic character of Bernhard, a widower scholar who disconsolately walks the streets of 1940s Jerusalem, as he tries to come to terms with his private grief and the Shoah.

"Yoel Hoffmann's poetic, avant-garde novel effectively portrays the despair of the German Jewish widower who reacts to his loss while simultaneously responding to the destruction and tragedy of the Holocaust. The author deftly interweaves Jewish kabbalistic teachings with philosophy to create a powerful and moving novel." –Eric Sterling, World Literature Today (Spring 1999)