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Jakov Lind (1927-2007) was born in Vienna. He fled Austria when he was eleven, finding temporary refuge in Holland, and then surviving inside Nazi Germany by assuming a Dutch identity. After a literary apprenticeship in Israel, he moved to 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. Ralph Manheim (1907-1992) translated Gunter Grass, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Hermann Hesse, and Martin Heidegger, along with many other German and French authors. His translations of NYRB Classics include Short Letter, Long Farewell; Slow Homecoming; and A Sorrow Beyond Dreams. Michael Kruger's successful career as a poet and novelist has been paralleled by his long and distinguished record as head of the German publishing house Hanser Verlag and editor of the influential journal Akzente. He received the Morike Prize, one of Germany's most prestigious awards, in recognition of his contribution to both sides of the trade.
Soul of Wood succeeds through the sheer wickedly comic telling; for all the surrealist gags, frenetic symbolism and laughs, the horror strikes one full in the face. Irish Times Reading Lind can feel a bit like chasing the dissolving threads of a dream (or nightmare). But at its best his prose can be devestatingly illuminating... Jakov Lind had a rare ability to shake the foundations of ethical constructions. And he could make us laugh. The combination is irresistible. Jewish Chronicle
