The Tree of Life, Book One: On the Brink of the Precipice, 1939

by Chava Rosenfarb

Overview

On the Brink of the Precipice, the first volume of the trilogy The Tree of Life, describes the lives of the novel’s ten protagonists in the Lodz Ghetto before the outbreak of World War II. Chava Rosenfarb, herself a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen, draws on her own history to create realistic characters who struggle daily to retain a sense of humanity and dignity despite the physical and psychological effects of ghetto life. Although the novel depicts horrendous experiences, the light of faith in the human spirit shines through this novel’s every page.

Winner of the 1972 J. J. Segal Prize and the 1979 Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299204549
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	10/27/2004
Series:	Library of World Fiction , #1
Edition description:	1
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Chava Rosenfarb is a Holocaust survivor who has published poetry, prose, and drama in both English and Yiddish.  Her English titles include Bociany and Of Lodz and Love. She now resides in Alberta, Canada.

Editorial Reviews

"Chava Rosenfarb’s The Tree of Life. . . is a work that rises to the heights of the great creations of world literature and towers powerfully over the Jewish literature of the Holocaust."—Jury decision for the Manger Prize for Yiddish Literature

"With your work you give artistic meaning to an epoch of Jewish experience that is so unbelievably brutal that it is not possible for those who were never there to grasp the full breadth of its horrors. Your manner of conveying the ghetto life is, however, of such scope and literary power that the reader feels himself to be living with you."—Decision of the Jury for the J. J. Segal Prize for Yiddish and Hebrew Literature for the Year 1972

"Descending into the abyss of the ghetto, the author has descended into the depth of awareness of the full range of human nature."—B. Shlevin, Undzer Shtimme, Paris

From the Publisher