In the autumn of 1938, so Maxim Biller’s masterly novella begins, a mysterious double of Thomas Mann appears in the small Polish town of Drohobycz. Soon afterwards one of the inhabitants of Drohobycz, the Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, writes to the real Thomas Mann, asking him for something entirely impossible.
Maxim Biller’s novella is an astonishing feat. Inspired by the eastern European narrative tradition of such authors as Mikhail Bulgakov and Isaac Bashevis Singer, he sweeps his readers away with him, in a magical burlesque text, on a journey to the Polish town of Drohobycz and into the world of the writer Bruno Schulz in the year 1938. He takes us to a cellar where Bruno Schulz, who earns his living as an art teacher and dreams of achieving literary success all over Europe, writes a letter to Thomas Mann. He hopes that the world-famous author can help him to find a publisher abroad – then, at last, he would have a good reason to leave his native country forever. For there is no mistaking the signs of imminent disaster, nourishing his constant companion fear. An apocalyptic vision forms in Bruno Schulz’s mind, anticipating what would soon in fact happen in occupied Poland. The result is a literary work of art, brilliantly written and full of black humour.
