Nirgendwo in Afrika is a very interesting book illustrating an aspect of WWII I have not been familiar with namely the life of European Jews forced to leave their home countries and escaping Hitler's persecution by emigrating into African countries such as Kenya.
I had the feeling that Stefanie Zweig has been illustrating the conditions her families has been living under in Kenya very well, but the while her language has been very special, it has also been a little difficult to understand at times.
I had to read whole paragraphs twice sometimes in order understand what she wanted to say this might have been due to the many foreign words she used.
I definitely enjoyed reading Nirgendwo in Afrika and I can only recommend it to everyone who wants to read about WWII from a more unknown perspective.
This book is not so much a novel as a fictionalised account of a time in the author's life where as a little girl, fleeing Nazi Germany and their comfortable middleclass life there, she and her family ended up as nonpaid farmer tenants in Kenya.
The cover of the book is an almostperfect visual synopsis to the story,
Read it and be enchanted, The Oscarwinning movie of the same name Best Foreign Language Filmpointed me to this excellent novel, Walter and Jettel and their daughter Regina are Jewish refugees forced by Hitler into precarious exile in rural Kenya, where they endure an often humiliating interaction with the colony's white settler community yet discover ongoing and deep friendships with various Kenyan Africans.
This is especially true for Regina, who is soon speaking several indigenous languages as well as Swahili, The book is beautifully written, rich in striking metaphors, presenting Regina's perspective as she experiences the shifting cultural worlds with which she must cope, from the joyful freedoms of a child's farm life to her constrained English boarding school to the complex dynamics of a Nairobi set of flats where her parents quarrel.
Themovie diverged widely from the book in its plot and in its focus on Jettel, who plays much less of a role in the book compared to Regina and her father.
But the atmosphere of exotic exile in a harsh but lovely land, constantly traumatized by the tragedies in their German homeland, permeates both the book and the movie, giving each their powerful impact.
هیچ کجا آفریقا
در زمره فیلمای جنگ جهانی بود که باید می خوندم می دیدم
خیلی لذت بخش بود
در زمان جنگ یک وکیل یهودی به همراه خانواده ش به کنیا مهاجرت می کنه و سعی می کنه اونجا مزرعه داری کنه
خیلی خوب می شد تفاوت ها و زیبایی های دو فرهنگ و بعد دو نسل رو متوجه بشی
این کتاب روایتگر تقریبی دو دهه است
درد اورترین قسمت ماجرا برای قسمت هایی بود که گهگدار از حال خانواده هاشون که تو المان مونده بودن خبر دار می شدن
Zweig's memoir transgresses into the realm of the fantastic, magical time and warpable reality, The Redlichs, a desolated Jewish family fleeing Nazi Europe, force the contrast between contexts into vibrant definition and color, Through their eyes we see confusions, conflicts of culture and country, We also see the Redlichs from the outside, through the eyes of tribesmen and expatriate Europeans, Owuor, the greatest friend of the family, brings a sustained note of tenderness to the tale, The shifting point of view works, making actions that could be alienating understandable on all sides,
Zweig's language is seductive, compelling, She writes with poetry what she gives us through Regina's perspective feels like Africa to me, that magic land of unlimited dreadful and splendid possibility.
If only we could grasp our own present lives the way Regina emraces Africa, not limit joy to that generous land of our imagination where we humans tend to focus our ambitions and pleasures.
Loss and disaffection haunt the parents, Walter and Jettel, while they struggle to craft connections that seem denied, They reach at the wrong times for the wrong things, always looking over their shoulders for what is desirable, The desperate wish to turn back time destroys their comforts, and the miscarriage of one baby in Africa plunges their hopes and relationship into darkness.
Their daughter Regina enters in where adult fear prevents, While Walter and Jettel fill their new lives with the chimeras of old expectations, social demands that no longer apply to this dispossessed life they lead, Regina finds riches in the friendships and understandings she embraces.
Her father follows reluctantly, making alliances where her mother cannot, In time a healing grows for both Walter and Jettel, marked by a first son born in and of Africa, Then the world reverses for the Redlichs and what has been gained must be put aside,
Zweig's book makes me mindful of the power of human memory and the stubbornness with which we each cling to pasts that we dream of reentering.
In the fog of that dream we miss the vibrant real world however strange, into which time tumbles us against our wills,
film izlerken ağladığım çoktur, kitap okurkense çoğunlukla tutabilirim gözyaşlarımı,
bu kitabı okurken tutamadım, her bir an, her duygu, öyle güzel, öyle sıcak aktarılmış ki, kendimi kitap boyunca Afrika'daki sığınmacılar arasında buldum.
yanlış anlaşılmasın trajedi yüklü bir roman değil, Yazarın çocukluğuna dair bir özyaşam öyküsü ve elbette ki çocuğun bakış açısıyla anlatıldığından, zor koşullara, ebeveynlerinin hezeyanlarına rağmen mutlu ve umutlu öykülerle dolu.
İkinci dünya savaşı döneminde Afrika'nın İngiliz sömürgesi altındaki güzel ülkesi Kenya'da geçiyor olaylar, Her ne kadar sığınmacı bir yahudi ailenin yaşadıklarına odaklanılmış olsa da o döneme ilişkin farklı kesimlerin hayatından da hoş ve ilginç izlenimler ediniyorsunuz.
Ülkesindeki katliamdan kaçmış böylelikle hayatta kalabilmiş Walter Regina'nın babası bu ülkede ikinci sınıf, dışlanmış ve yabancı hissetmekte, bütün olanlara rağmen vatanım dediği Almanya'nın hasretini çekmektedir.
Bu dönemde Kenya'daki sığınmacılar sadece zulümden kaçmış Alman yahudilerden ibaret değil, Sovyet zulmünden kaçan doğu Avrupalılar ve daha önce yerleşmiş Hintliler de var, Onlar da elbette dezavantajlı kesimden,
Kenya'da herşeyin hakimi haliyle sömürgeci İngilizler, Fakat onlar da bu ilkellikte yaşamaktan memnun değiller,
Beni en çok düşündüren kendi vatanlarında sığınmacılardan bile daha değersiz olan Afrikalı yerliler oldu, Onlar şikayet etmiyorlar, ingiliz, alman, . . vs. sahiplerin hakimiyetinde karın tokluğuna günlerini geçirirken, tarlalarda, çiftliklerde hizmetçilik, ırgatlık yaparken
türkülerini söyleyip, davullarını çalıp, habire sevişip, sahiplere yeni köleler doğuruyorlar.
özetle, belki okuduğum en iyi roman değil ama kesinlikle unutmayacaklarımdan, Filmini de en kısa zamanda izleyeceğim, Fantastic book : Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime infor a remote farm in Kenya.
Abandoning their oncecomfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel, and their fiveyearold daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways.
Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn while the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the countrylearning the local language and customs, and finding a friend in Owuor, the farm's cook.
As the war rages on the other side of the world, the familys relationships with their strange environment become increasingly complicated as Jettel grows more selfassured and Walter more haunted by the life they left behind.
In, with the war over, Regina's fondest dream comes true when her brother Max is born, Walter's decision, however, to return to his homeland to help rebuild a new Germany puts his family into turmoil again,
Visit the Web site for the film at www, nowhereinafrica. com Nowhere in Africa is one of my favourite movies ever, Its magic, its pain, and its characters make for a compelling story, The book however felt unbearably dull in most chapters and I didnt even feel attached to Regina, I highly recommend the movie but the book is quite different from it, and in a way which I didnt like, .