European Book Club - May

The European Book Club at the Alliance Française de Denver meets on the last Tuesday of each month to discuss books by a diverse list of European authors. Each month the group will read a work by a different European author that has been translated into English. This group is led by dedicated member and volunteer, Nan Campbell.   

This month's selection: "Yiza" by Michael Kohlmeier (Germany)

Summary:
Part dark fairy tale, part mystery, Yiza is the story of three homeless street children on the run. One evening, not long after her arrival in Germany, six-year-old Yiza is abandoned at the market where she spends her days. At a shelter for migrant children she meets two boys, Schamhan and Arian, and together they run away. Trekking through snowy forests and housing settlements, they evade police custody, subsisting on the margins of society and doing whatever it takes to survive. Both boys are protective of Yiza but are blind to the moral and emotional complexities of their actions. When Yiza falls ill they take shelter in a greenhouse and Arian spends his days begging for food and medicine, but before long they are discovered. When Yiza is illicitly taken into foster care and confined the novel reaches its brutal denouement as we see that Schamhan and Arian will do anything to be reunited with her. Narrated in simple language and with an innocent charm that belies its social reality, Yiza is a pertinent and timely tale of displacement and suffering. --goodreads.com

Author Bio:
Michael Köhlmeier is a contemporary Austrian writer and musician. He studied Politics and German at the University of Marburg, Germany, and Mathematics and Philosophy at the universities in Giessen and Frankfurt, Germany. --Wikipedia

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