Bücher von Chaim Potok

“Extraordinary . . . No one but Chaim Potok could have written this strangely sweet, compelling, and deeply felt novel.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer   In his powerful My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok gave the world an unforgettable character and a timeless story that The New York Times Book Review hailed as “little short of a work of genius.” The Chicago Sun-Times declared it “a story that had to be told.” Now, Chaim Potok’s beloved character returns to learn, to teach, to dream, in The Gift of Asher Lev.   Twenty years have passed. Asher Lev is a world-renowned artist living with his young family in France. Still, he is unsure of his artistic direction. Success has not brought ease to his heart. Then Asher’s beloved uncle dies suddenly, and Asher and his family rush back to Brooklyn—and into a world that Asher thought he had left behind forever. It is a journey of confrontation and discovery as Asher purges his past in search of new inspiration for his art and begins to understand the true meaning of sacrifice and the painful joy in sharing the most precious gift of all.   Praise for The Gift of Asher Lev   “A masterwork.”—Newsday   “Rivals anything Chaim Potok has ever produced. It is a book written with passion about passion. You’re not likely to read anything better this year.”—The Detroit News “Fascinating.”—The Washington Post Book World   “Very moving.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

From the celebrated author of The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev, a trilogy of related novellas about a woman whose life touches three very different men—stories that encompass some of the profoundest themes of the twentieth century.Ilana Davita Dinn is the listener to whom three men relate their lives. As a young girl, she offers English lessons to a teenage survivor of the camps. In "The Ark Builder,” he shares with her the story of his friendship with a proud old builder of synagogue arks, and what happened when the German army invaded their Polish town. As a graduate student, she finds herself escorting a guest lecturer from the Soviet Union, and in "The War Doctor,” her sympathy moves him to put his painful past to paper recounting his experiences as a Soviet NKVD agent who was saved by an idealistic doctor during the Russian civil war, only to encounter him again during the terrifying period of the Kremlin doctors' plot. And, finally, we meet her in "The Trope Teacher,” in which a distinguished professor of military history, trying to write his memoirs, is distracted by his wife's illness and by the arrival next door of a new neighbor, the famous writer I. D. (Ilana Davita) Chandal.Poignant and profound, Chaim Potok's newest fiction is a major addition to his remarkable—and remarkably loved—body of work.

For Davita Chandal, growing up in the New York of the 1930s and '40s is an experience of joy and sadness. Her loving parents, both fervent radicals, fill her with the fiercely bright hope of a new and better world. But as the deprivations of war and depression take a ruthless toll, Davita unexpectedly turns to the Jewish faith that her mother had long ago abandoned, finding there both a solace for her questioning inner pain and a test of her budding spirit of independence.

Following a baseball game that nearly became a religious war, two Jewish boys become friends. Danny comes from the strict Hasidic sect. Reuven is brought up by a father patently aware of the 20th century. Everything tries to destroy their friendship, but they use honesty with each other as a shield and it proves an impenetrable protection.