Close to Jedenew

On this evening, on the last evening, it is Antonina who says softly: They’re coming.

This striking novella makes harrowing poetry of an actual historic incident: Terrified and hiding in the woods as if in a German fairy tale gone horribly awry, a group of children tell the tale of a small Polish village run amok. With no provocation from the still-distant Nazis, the farmers of tiny Jedenew unite to launch a murderous rampage against the local Jews who have long been their friends and neighbors, even their benefactors.

In the hands of young German sensation Kevin Vennemann, Close to Jedenew is a lyrical, stylish, and penetrating plunge into fatal mysteries. How can we explain such madness? Venneman’s deft and innovative prose, even his gripping and mysterious narrator, speaks timelessly to, and of, us all.