Internationally acclaimed writer Eva Hoffman joins novelist Amanda Craig and writer and fiction and politics editor of the TLS Toby Lichtig to discuss this forgotten masterpiece, the first novel to capture the terror and brutality of Kristallnacht.

Written in the wake of Kristallnacht in a frenzied four weeks, 23-year-old Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz’s unbearably suspenseful and disturbingly prophetic posthumous novel recounts the plight of German Jewish businessman Otto Silberman, fleeing his home in the wake of the pogrom as he races to escape this homeland that is no longer safe.

Internationally acclaimed writer Eva Hoffman joins novelist Amanda Craig joins author and politics editor of the TLS Toby Lichtig to discuss this forgotten masterpiece, the first novel to capture the terror and brutality of Kristallnacht.

In Association with the TLS

Amanda Craig is a British novelist, short-story writer and critic. She reviews children’s books for The New Statesman and also writes for the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Observer. Her novel, The Lie of the Land, has been optioned for a TV series by Baby Cow Productions. Amanda’s eighth novel, The Golden Rule, was published by Little, Brown in 2020.

Toby Lichtig is the Fiction and Politics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He writes for a range of publications and has appeared as a guest critic on various television and radio programmes. He also freelances as a documentary producer. Toby was chair of judges of the 2018 JQ/Wingate Prize and is the current chair of the EBRD Literature Prize

Eva Hoffman grew up in Cracow, Poland and studied music at the Cracow Music Conservatory before emigrating in her teens to Canada and the United States, and eventually settling in Great Britain. After receiving her Ph. D. in literature from Harvard University, she worked as senior editor and cultural critic at The New York Times, and has taught at various British and American universities. Her books, which have been widely translated, include Lost in Translation, Exit Into History, After Such Knowledge and Time, as well as two novels, The Secret and Illuminations (published as Appassionata in the US). She has written and presented numerous programmes for BBC Radio and conceived a series of programmes at the South Bank on Writing and Music. Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Whiting Award for Writing, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Prix Italia for Radio, for work combining text and music. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and is currently a Visiting Professor at the European Institute at UCL. She lives in London.