10-05-2010
The choice of my novel as Book of the Year was made by the main book magazine in Portugal, LER. This novel will come out in the UK and Australia in January 2011. It has just come out in Serbia. Other good news: the short movie I wrote and acted in has just won Best Drama prize at a New York film festival.
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As I say, The Warsaw Anagrams has just come out in Serbia. To see the cover and a short synopsis of the book, go to http://www.knjigainfo.com/index.php?gde=@http://www.knjigainfo.com/pls/sasa/bip.knjiga?k_id=127952
The short film I wrote and acted in is called The Slow Mirror (O Espelho Lento). In May of 2010, it won the Best Drama prize at the New York City Downtown Short Film Festival. You can see a trailer for the movie at YouTube. Just go there and enter "Trailer - The Slow Mirror" in the search engine.
To see an interview with me in a main Serbian newspaper about my novel, The Warsaw Anagrams, go to: http://www.vijesti.me/index.php?id=334794
About a year ago, I won the Prix Alberto Benveniste in France for my novel Guardian of the Dawn. The ceremony was wonderful. There were about 300 people in the audience and everyone was very kind to me. The dinner afterward - at a Turkish restaurant - was delicious.
The prize is given for Jewish-themed books published in French.
The Spanish edition of Guardian of the Dawn has recently come out, and it is available from Destino. You can see the cover and read about this edition here: http://www.casadellibro.com/libro-el-guardian-de-la-aurora/2900001319096/pt_pt. It's called "El Guardián de la Aurora". There was a very positive review in El Pais - my first ever review in that newspaper
Another bit of good news: The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon came out last year in Japan! The cover is beautiful and the paper quality is excellent. Who ever thought I'd be read in Japan!
My novel THE SEVENTH GATE was nominated for the 2009 INTERNATIONAL IMPAC Award, the richest prize in the English-speaking world. It didn't win, but I'm still flattered, of curse. To see the long-list of nominated titles, go to: http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/2009/longlist.htm#Z
To see the cover of the Japanese edition of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, visit (and if you read Japanese, you can tell me what it says!):
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9%E3%83%9C%E3%83%B3%E3%81%AE%E6%9C%80%E5%BE%8C%E3%81%AE%E3%82%AB%E3%83%90%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9%E3%83%88-%E3%83%AA%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89-%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A0%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC/dp/488059346X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232789689&sr=8-3
I have a new children's book out in Portuguese. It's entitled Dança Quando Chegares ao Fim. We're trying to get a Spanish edition at the moment.
The anthology I edited for Save the Children - called THE CHILDREN'S HOURS - has been published in English and will soon come out in Italy (in the spring of 2010, from Mondadori) and Portugal (in the fall of 2010, from ASA)
To raise money for Save the Children in its fight for children's rights, I organized and edited The Children's Hours. All writers' royalties will go directly to Save the Children. The anthology has stories about children by Nadine Gordimer, Margaret Atwood, David Almond, Ali Smith, Markus Zusak, Junot Díaz, Meg Rosoff, André Brink, David Liss and many other world-famous, bestselling authors. The stories are EXCELLENT.
A wonderful review came out in The Independent in early January. You can see it here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-childrens-hour-ed-richard-zimler--rasa-sekulovic-1232949.html
Here is a review from The Observer that came out on December 8:
"This collection of stories from the likes of Margaret Atwood and Ali Smith is both a lovely read and a worthy project: royalties go to Save the Children and the editors worked for free. You would expect a book which states that writers should 'raise awareness of the issues involved' in children's rights to have a bittersweet tone, but then most adult fiction about childhood does. And while many of these excellent stories, such as Junot Díaz's 'Invierno' and Uri Orlev's 'The Submarine', focus on bereavement, war or poverty, others simply act as reminders of a child's perspective. Of these, Etgar Keret's wry tale of a father trying to teach his young son the value of money and Meg Rosoff's 'An Opera in My Head' are among the best".
Please consider buying a copy of The Children's Hours if you live in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand or Australia. (The American and Canadian edition will only come out around April of 2009). About two American dollars of every copy that is purchased will go to Save the Children, so you will not only get a great collection of short stories but you will also be fighting for the health, welfare and education of kids all over the world. To see what the anthology looks like, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Childrens-Hours-Stories-About-Childhood/dp/1905147805/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220701211&sr=1-21
The Swedish edition of "The Seventh Gate" has come out. In Swedish, the novel is called "Den 7: e porten" Visit the following site to see the cover: http://www.lusima.se/bocker.htm
To read the first chapter of “The Seventh Gate”, please scroll up and click on “The Books”)
"The Seventh Gate" is another of the independent novels that make up my “Sephardic Cycle". To purchase a copy at Amazon.co.uk, please go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seventh-Gate-Richard-Zimler/dp/1845294874/sr=1-10/qid=1164789085/ref=sr_1_10/202-4014184-5407036?ie=UTF8&s=books
An Amazon reader has posted a glowing review. Here it is:
A vivid and engrossing novel set in 1930s Berlin, 15 Feb 2007
This is the first book I have read by Richard Zimler and I am very impressed. I have read many books about Germany in the 1930s, both fiction and non-fiction, but none quite capture the dilemmas faced by ordinary Germans as the Nazi party came to power, as this book does. The book centres around Sophie, an adolescent girl living in Berlin, with a Communist father and an overbearing mother, and a seemingly autistic brother. The cast of characters is huge, including Isaac Zarco, a Jewish expert on the Kabbalah, and a number of circus performers, some of whom have disabilities or deformities which only the circus seemed to find a place for. Sophie gets drawn into this circle of people who would later suffer at the hands of the Nazis, at the same time as her own parents get drawn into the Nazi party. Sophie herself finds herself living a double life, continuing to help and see her new friends, while being compelled by her mother to join the League of German Maidens, the female wing of the Hitler Youth movement. To make life even more complicated, she is love with a young Nazi, despite hating the ideas he stands for. The book is structured around the Seven Gates of the Kabbalah, and each section seems to reveal new dilemmas and new horrors as the Nazi party rises to power. Obviously the backcloth of the story is Jewish persecution, but we are also confronted with the effects of the Nazi's horrific policies towards disabled people. The fictional setting allows Zimler to show what those policies meant in human terms, particularly the impact on families and friends of those whose bodies carried signs of "inferior" physical conditions. Sophie is a convincing character, full of contradictions, and with a mind of her own which is usually at odds with her parents views and those of her German friends. Through reading this book I have understood much better how the German people went along with the reign of Nazi terror. For most Germans the choice was between adopting the Nazi line or making a stand which would undoubtedly have had dire consequences for your own and your family's lives. Zimler shows us clearly that one act of compromise leads to another, and that to fail to make a stand at the start led inevitably to the horrors to come. Another main character in the book is Berlin itself. Zimler seems to be intimately acquainted with the city and his descriptions (and detailed map) are a notable feature of the book. Similarly, the many small illustrations of characters in the book are a delight. Indeed, the book is beautifully designed and is a delight to handle and read. This is a magnificent book, reminding me slightly of Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum - equally disturbing and quite as challenging.
Here is my own a brief synopsis of the novel:
For how long can love, humor, and strategic resistance hold out against the Nazi war on the disabled? Based on recent research and first-person testimony into this moral crime, The Seventh Gate is a thrilling, immensely moving, and darkly witty tale that offers keen insight into one of the most shocking – and overlooked – events of the Twentieth Century.
Berlin, 1932… Sophie Riedesel is an intelligent, artistic, and sexually adventurous fourteen-year-old coming of age during Hitler’s rise to power. Forced to lead a double life when her father and boyfriend become collaborators with the Nazi authorities, she reserves her sarcasm and her dreams of becoming a Hollywood star for her beloved elderly neighbor, Isaac Zarco, and his friends, most of whom are Jews and ex-circus performers working against the government in a secret group called the Ring. She grows especially close to Vera, a wickedly funny but temperamental giant whose disfigured face once earned her a starring role in a circus sideshow.
When a member of the Ring and close childhood friend of Sophie’s is sent to Dachau, the first of the concentration camps, she realizes that there must be a Nazi traitor in the secret group. But who? Then Georg Hirsch, the leader of the Ring, is murdered, and blue swastikas are painted on his face. His windpipe has been broken but there are no bruises on his neck. How was he killed? And why are the swastikas blue?
As Sophie investigates the crime, the Nazis begin to sterilize all those they consider “unhealthy” to the German race – individuals who are disfigured, epileptic, congenitally blind and deaf... She begins to fear the safety of her younger brother Hansi, a reclusive boy who lives in his own universe and who – in this era before autism was diagnosed – has been labeled “feebleminded.”
Isaac soon becomes convinced by the pact between Hitler and Stalin and other “signs” that an apocalyptic prophesy made by a Sixteenth Century ancestor of his is about to come terribly true. He works night and day to decipher medieval texts that are said to contain a magical kabbalistic inscription that can avert this disaster. Is he mad to believe that he might be the one to save the world?
When Hansi’s sterilization order comes, Sophie realizes that she and her brother have been caught in a desperate war. She fights with all her ingenuity and guile to save him and all that she loves about Germany. In the end, however, she is forced to make a deadly betrayal…
Through successive mysteries, reversals, and surprises – and across a race against time – The Seventh Gate builds to a shattering climax. In its beautifully shaped portraits of Sophie, Hansi, Isaac, and Vera, and in its chilling but sensuous evocation of Berlin in the 1930s, Richard Zimler’s novel is at one and the same time a love story and tragedy – and a tale of ferocious heroism.
On a more personal note, I also want to mention that my mother, Ruth G. Zimler, suffered a major stroke in August of 2006 and died on September 21, 2006. I spent most of last September in New York making sure she got the best possible treatment and was allowed to die peacefully. "The Seventh Gate" is my first novel that she didn't have the chance to read in manuscript. I'm sad about that, but I'm very grateful that she was able to give me feedback about all my other books and stories. I always listened closely to what she had to say about my books, both good and bad. "The Seventh Gate" is dedicated to her.
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