Katschen The Book of Joseph

In kaleidoscopic fragments, Hoffmann refracts Jewish popular lore and folk wisdom through a postmodernist prism, brightening his prose with snatches of verse, songs, diary excerpts, letters, ominous dreams, lush erotic passages and Yiddish sayings. "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 the new state of Israel. The novellas radiate the original poetry of Hoffmann's atomized hypnotic language, which Rosmarie Waldrop has called "utterly enchanting — it's like nothing else."

• Author
• Yoel Hoffmann, David Kriss, Alan Treister, Eddie Levenston

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 162

• Publisher
• New Directions

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780811214056

• Release date
• 1999