Jewels and Ashes
Arnold Zable
‘Do you ever think about those you left behind?’, I ask father. ‘Not often’, he says. ‘Such memories are a luxury I can’t afford.’
First his parents made a journey to the New World. It was the 1930s, and Europe was seething. As he grew up, Arnold Zable heard tales, songs, fragments of the world they had left behind. He had inherited a fractured, vibrant past which both fascinated and disturbed him. Finally, he had to confront the mystery: he had to travel back to the Old World, to his parents’ home, to his grandparents’ birthplace, and to a land pervaded by ancestral ghosts.
Jewels and Ashes is the result of that journey of discovery. Moving effortlessly between centuries and continents, and across inner and outer land-scapes, it is an astonishing achievement. In one stroke, the Jewish historical experience has become a gift to the world.
Arnold Zable
Arnold Zable is a widely published writer, story-teller and educator. He was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and grew up in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Carlton. He was educated in local state schools, Melbourne University, and Columbia University. Formerly a lecturer in the Arts Faculty at Melbourne University, he has travelled and worked in a variety of jobs in the USA, India, Papua New Guinea, Europe, South-East Asia, and China.
Jewels and Ashes won five Australian literary awards: the 1991 National Book Council Lysbeth Cohen Award; the 1991 NSW Ethnic Affairs Commission Award; the 1991 FAW ANA Literature Award; the 1992 Braille Book of the Year Award; and the 1992 Talking Book of the Year Award.
Mr Zable's most recent books include Café Scheherazade, The Fig Tree, and Scraps of Heaven.
He is married, and lives in Melbourne with his wife and son.
Buy from Readings
Extent: 216pp
Size: 198mm x 128mm
ISBN (10): 0908011 202
ISBN (13): 9780908011209
RRP: $24.95
Pub date: May 1991
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