Odessa

Genius and Death in a City of Dreams

Charles King author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:WW Norton & Co

Published:14th Sep '12

Should be back in stock very soon

Odessa cover

From Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to Zionist renegade Vladimir Jabotinsky and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, an astonishing cast of geniuses helped shape Odessa, a legendary haven of cosmopolitan freedom on the Black Sea. Drawing on a wealth of original sources and offering the first detailed account of the destruction of the city's Jewish community during the Second World War, Charles King's Odessa is both history and elegy—a vivid chronicle of a multicultural city and its remarkable resilience over the past two centuries.

"King skillfully separates myth from fact.…His writing is aesthetic without superficiality, and erudite without pretension. Reading [his] book is like traveling as your best self, the self that you never quite are, ready with every reference, worldly and wise." -- Timothy Snyder - Wilson Quarterly
"[A] finely written and evocative portrait.…A worthy tribute to one of Europe’s greatest and least-known cities." -- The Economist
"Eloquent and engaging." -- Michael Schwirtz - Moment
"Engaging and highly enjoyable…King brings a travel writer’s gift for clear prose and keen observation to history." -- Matthew Kaminsky - The Daily Beast
"Rich and riveting, complex and compelling, powerful and poetic." -- Peter M. Gionatti - Newsday

  • Winner of National Jewish Book Award 2011

ISBN: 9780393342369

Dimensions: 211mm x 140mm x 23mm

Weight: 332g

336 pages