Told in clear and beautiful prose, Aaron’s Leap is a deeply moving portrait of love, sacrifice, and the transformative power of art in a time of brutal uncertainty.
— Simon Van Booy, author of The Illusion of Separateness
Aaron’s Leap
In a Europe torn by war and revolution, Berta Altmann comes of age as a gifted artist and independent woman. Her search for freedom leads her from Vienna to the Bauhaus school, Weimar Berlin, and Prague. As she encounters the celebrated artists of her time, she engages in aesthetic and ideological battles that will prove to have life-and-death consequences.
Based on the real-life story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis who taught art to children in the Nazi transport camp of Terezín and died in Auschwitz, Aaron’s Leap is framed by the lens of a 21st-century Israeli film crew that unknowingly unleashes the haunting force of buried history.
Aaron’s Leap is translated from the Czech by Craig Cravens.
Lidové Noviny Book of the Year Award Finalist
Jewish Book Council “Recommended Read” & “Jewish Feminist Perspectives Reading List” selection
McNally Robinson Booksellers “Friday Read” selection
Paperback
- ISBN
- 9781934137703
Ebook
- ISBN
- 9781934137710
Listen to Magdaléna Platzová discuss Aaron’s Leap on Trafika Europe Radio and with Words Without Borders.
Preview Aaron’s Leap at A Public Space.
Magdaléna Platzová is the author of several books, including three novels published in English: Aaron’s Leap, a Lidové Noviny Book of the Year Award finalist, The Attempt, longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and a Czech Book Award finalist, and Life After Kafka, a Magnesia Litera award finalist. Her fiction has also appeared in A Public Space and Words Without Borders. Platzová grew up in the Czech Republic; studied in Washington, DC, and England; received her MA in Philosophy at Charles University in Prague; and has taught at New York University’s Gallatin School. She is now based in Lyon, France.
visit author page »Praise for Aaron’s Leap
Just as a well-curated collection of art has the ability to capture the zeitgeist of a given era with great economy, [Aaron’s Leap] manages to position the reader in a present that is informed by the distinct motifs of the past.
— Necessary Fiction
Platzová’s prose is as sharp and effective as the angles of an expressionist monument. . . . [A] powerfully elegiac novel.
— Publishers Weekly
A Czech novel about art, death and sex set against the backdrop of the Holocaust and never-ending war . . . The reader comes to connect with and care for [Platzová’s] characters as more than mouthpieces for history.
— Kirkus Reviews
Aaron’s Leap takes you on an epic journey, which is also a very intimate and personal story—entertaining, touching and brutally honest. Her characters are full of compassion and tenderness, but are never sentimental. It’s a great book.
— Agnieszka Holland, Academy Award-nominated writer and director of Europa Europa and guest director of HBO’s The Wire and Netflix’s House of Cards
Beautifully written, absorbing, and impeccably researched.
— Zuzana Justman, Emmy Award-winning writer and director of Voices of the Children
This young author’s book immediately caught my interest for its narrative mastery and remarkably skillful identification with the complex atmosphere of the interbellum era . . . [A] brilliant novel.
— Ivan Klíma, Franz Kafka Prize-winning author of Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light and My Crazy Century