Steve Sem-Sandberg

I should not have gone back to the island but did it all the same. After many years away, Andreas returns to his childhood home on a small island off the Norwegian coast. He is there to sort through the belongings of his late foster father in their decaying old house, the Yellow Villa. But he soon finds himself overwhelmed with unexpected memories, and begins to uncover not only the shadowy history of the island, but the mysterious truth about his familys past ... Rich in shimmering echoes from Shakespeares play, Steve Sem-Sandbergs The Tempest is a hypnotic portrayal of the inherited guilt that seeps through generations, haunting an island overgrown with myths.

In the middle of the 20th century Vienna began the transformation from post-imperial oddity to a new sub-imperial status as a satellite of Berlin under Nazi control. Am Spiegelgrund clinic, an institution in a garden suburb of the city, was apparently well-intentioned: both a reform school for lost, wayward boys and girls, and a clinic for chronically ill or malformed children. However, its doctors, nurses and teachers created a monstrous parody of the institutions benign-sounding brief, as instructed by the Nazi regimes euthanasia programme, devised to eliminate physically, mentally and racially inferior stock. Through the eyes of an inmate, Adrian Ziegler, and a nurse, Anna Katschenka, Steve Sem-Sandberg, author of the award-winning The Emperor of Lies, explores an intolerable chapter in Austrias past. An absorbing, overwhelming novel, rich in incident and character, The Chosen Ones is obliquely illuminated by the authors sharp sense of the absurd. Passionately serious, meticulously researched, it is an invaluable case study of oppression and injustice.

In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second largest Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Lódz. Its chosen leader: Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a sixty-three-year-old Jewish businessman and orphanage director, and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghettos very existence. From one of Scandinavias most critically acclaimed and bestselling authors, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowskis monarchical rule over a quarter of a million Jews. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it - and himself - indispensable to the Nazi regime. Drawing on the chronicles of life in the Lodz ghetto, Steve Sem-Sandberg captures the full panorama of human resilience, and questions the nature of evil. He asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime driven by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatic strategist who managed to save Jewish lives through his collaboration policies?

Steve Sem-Sandberg, author of the award-winning The Emperor of Lies, explores an intolerable chapter in Austria''s past.The Am Spiegelgrund clinic, in glittering Vienna, masqueraded as a well-intentioned reform school for wayward boys and girls and a home for chronically ill children. The reality, however, was very different: in the wake of Germany''s annexation of Austria on the eve of World War Two, its doctors, nurses, and teachers created a monstrous parody of the institution''s benign-sounding brief. The Nazi regime''s euthanasia program would come to determine the fate of many of the clinic''s inhabitants.Through the eyes of a child inmate, Adrian Ziegler, and a nurse, Anna Katschenka, Steve Sem-Sandberg, the author of the award-winning The Emperor of Lies, explores the very meaning of survival. An absorbing, emotionally overwhelming novel, rich in incident and character, The Chosen Ones is obliquely illuminated by the author''s sharp sense of the absurd. Passionately serious, meticulously researched, and deeply profound, this extraordinary and dramatic novel bears witness to oppression and injustice, and offers invaluable and necessary insight on an intolerable chapter in Austria''s past.

The Am Spiegelgrund clinic, in glittering Vienna, masqueraded as a well-intentioned reform school for wayward boys and girls and a home for chronically ill children. The reality, however, was very different: in the wake of Germany''s annexation of Austria on the eve of World War II, its doctors, nurses, and teachers created a monstrous parody of the institution''s benign-sounding brief. The Nazi regime''s euthanasia program would come to determine the fate of many of the clinic''s inhabitants.Through the eyes of a child inmate, Adrian Ziegler, and a nurse, Anna Katschenka, Steve Sem-Sandberg, the author of the award-winning The Emperor of Lies, explores the very meaning of survival. An absorbing, emotionally overwhelming novel, rich in incident and character, The Chosen Ones is obliquely illuminated by the author''s sharp sense of the absurd. Passionately serious, meticulously researched, and deeply profound, this extraordinary and dramatic novel bears witness to oppression and injustice, and offers invaluable and necessary insight into an intolerable chapter in Austrias past.

En 1821, Johann Christian Woyzeck mata a puñaladas a la viuda Johanna Woost, y es ajusticiado tras una larga controversia en torno a su salud mental. Este crimen inspiraría a Georg Büchner para escri

Un asesino ordena desde la cárcel los pedazos rotos de su vida en una confesión desoladora. Una vertiginosa novela que nos enfrenta a la sangrienta historia de Europa.En 1821, Johann Christian Woyzeck mata a puñaladas a la viuda Johanna Woost, y es ajusticiado tras una larga controversia en torno a su salud mental. Este crimen inspiraria a Georg Buchner para escribir, en 1836, la que consideramos la primera obra de teatro contemporaneo, Woyzeck. En su celda, mientras la luz recorre las paredes, Woyzeck recuerda: los años, los dias, las horas que precedieron a su crisis, alimentada por un amor loco por su amante, a la que apuñalo en plena calle, a la vista de todos los transeuntes. Vadeando los torturados recuerdos que se agolpan en su cabeza, el asesino busca darle sentido a su experiencia en un rompecabezas de locura, deseo, crimen y culpa. Sem-Sandberg esboza en W. el retrato de una Europa desgarrada, que se desmorona bajo el salvajismo de la guerra.

Un retrato del gueto judío de Lodz cuyo dirigente, Rumkowski, un hombre de negocios judío, cambió el curso de la historia del Holocausto.La historia deEl imperio de las mentiras comienza en febrero de 1940, cuando los nazis abrieron el segundo gueto judio mas grande en Polonia, en la ciudad de Lodz, toda rodeada por una cerca de alambre que separaria a las familias judias -un cuarto de millon de personas- del resto de la poblacion. El lider elegido para el gueto fue Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, protagonista de esta novela, un misterioso hombre de negocios judio, motivado por una ambicion titanica: convertir aquel lugar en un complejo industrial productivo, obligando a los adultos y a los niños a trabajar en talleres para proveer a los militares alemanes.¿Fue Rumkowski un oportunista despiadado? ¿Un sediento de poder complice del regimen nazi? ¿O un pragmatico estratega que logro al menos salvar a los judios mediante la colaboracion? La extraordinaria novela de Steve Sem-Sandberg utiliza las autenticas cronicas del gueto de Lodz para regalarnos un retrato de lo que significo la supervivencia y la opresion durante el Holocausto.Reseña:Dickens hubiera aplaudido esta extraordinaria novela ambientada en el gueto de Lodz.The Guardian