Jakov Lind
Jakov Lind (born Heinz Jakov Landwirth, 10 February 1927 in Vienna – 16 February 2007 in London) was an Austrian-British writer of short stories and novels.
Early life
After the annexation of Austria by
While sitting in a cafe, Lind's father was picked up and arrested by the
As a child of 11 years in the Netherlands, Lind stayed initially in a children home in The Hague with his two sisters, but after a few months the siblings were separated and Lind moved in with a foster family who was paid by a Jewish organization towards his upkeep. After the German invasion of the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, the situation became difficult for the family, and Lind had to leave. He spent various time periods with different families as well as in a youth center in Gouda. Lind moved to Amsterdam and stayed with the family Granaat, first in their home in Amsterdam South, then joining them when they were forced to evacuate their apartment and move into the Jewish Ghetto.
During a roundup and deportation of Jews from the Ghetto in 1943, the family obeyed orders to leave the apartment and board lorries bound to
Writing career
In 1945, Heinz Jakov Landvirt became Jakov Lind, and he made his way to Haifa. After a literary apprenticeship, a marriage, and the birth of a son, he moved to Vienna for three years. Finally, in 1954, he settled in London, where he wrote, in German, the short stories and novels on which his stature as a major European writer is based: Soul of Wood, Landscape in Concrete, and Ergo. Lind began writing in English, and the autobiography Counting My Steps was the first book written in his new language.[1] On switching to English, Lind wrote that he was "Madder than anything...to think I could ever unlearn sounds I knew by heart and kidneys and replace them with other and better sounds."[1] His stories have been translated into English, German, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Finnish, Spanish, Hungarian, and Czech. His work has been adapted into plays, operas, and films. A collection of essays about his life and writings has also been published, Writing After Hitler: the Work of Jakov Lind (2001).
Books
- Soul of Wood (1964, first in German 1962 Eine Seele aus Holz)
- Landscape in Concrete (1966, first in German 1963 Landschaft in Beton)
- Ergo: A Comedy (1967, first in German as the novel Eine bessere Welt. In fünfzehn Kapiteln)
- Counting My Steps (1969)
- Numbers: A Further Autobiography (1972)
- The Trip to Jerusalem (1973)
- The Silver Foxes Are Dead and Other Plays (1968)
- Travels to the Enu: The Story of a Shipwreck (1982)
- The Stove (1983)
- The Inventor (1987)
- Crossing: the Discovery of Two Islands (1991)
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c Edelman, Gwen. "Biography". Jakov Lind.
- ^ Krüger, Michael (2010). Soul of Wood. NYRB. pp. x.
External links
- Jakov Lind website
- Journey Through the Night – a short film adapted from Lind's story, by Joram ten Brink Archived 1 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine
- The Guardian obituary
- Jakov Lind at Open Letter Books
- Jakov Lind at New York Review Books Classics
- Jakov Lind at The Quarterly Conversation
- "Third Life" from Tablet Magazine