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Early Sorrows (For Children and Sensitive Readers) Hardcover – October 17, 1998

by Danilo Kis (Author), Michael Henry Heim (Translator)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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Originally published in Belgrade in 1969 and never before translated into English, Early Sorrows is a stunning group of linked stories that memorialize Danilo Kis’s childhood. Kis, a writer of incomparable originality and eloquence, famous for his books The Encyclopedia of the Dead, Hourglass, and A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, was born in 1935 in Subotica, Yugoslavia, near the Hungarian border. “Back and forth over this land, during Danilo Kis’s childhood, armies and ideologies washed with the brutal regularity of surf,” William Gass noted in The New York Review of Books. “As a small boy and a Jew, in such circumstances, he was naturally surrounded by death and lies.” All of the works of Danilo Kis show the crucial importance of his childhood experiences, but it is Early Sorrows that goes to the wellspring of his first bereavements. The twenty pieces that make up Early Sorrows strike various tones––from dreamy pastorals to exercises in horror. Kis’s ingenuity, lyricism, and tonal subtlety are caught in all their luster by Michael Henry Heim. Early Sorrows centers on Andreas Sam, a highly intelligent boy whose life at first seems secure. His mother and sister dote on him; he excels at school; when he is hired out as a cowherd to help with the family’s finances, he reads the day away in the company of his best friend, the dog. He can only sense that terrible things may be going on in the world. Soon soldiers are marching down the road, and then one day, many people from the village are herded together and taken away, among them, his father, the dreamer.
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  1. Print length
    118 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    New Directions
  4. Publication date
    October 17, 1998
  5. Dimensions
    5.7 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780811213905
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0811213905
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Never before translated into English, this collection of interconnected stories, originally published in Belgrade in 1969, form the poignant, lightly fictionalized account of the acclaimed late novelist's boyhood in Yugoslavia. With a remarkable combination of affection, whimsy and wretchedness, these 19 lyrical, very short stories tell a recurring tale of spiritual innocence tainted by shame and the terror of life in hiding. In addition to his finesse with language and sensory detail, Kis succeeds at rendering a precocious child's struggle to comprehend the world. In the characteristic "The Game," a father hiding his Jewish origins is proud but unnerved when he catches his fair-haired son pretending to be a Jewish feather merchant, like the grandfather whom the boy has never seen. Frightened by the uncanny spectacle, the boy's gentile mother spins a bedtime tale that subtly informs the boy of racism and its mortal consequences. In each brief vignette, the boy contemplates his own disappearance and death, which he sees foreshadowed in his father's deportation to Auschwitz. Though its subtitle pitches the book to a relatively limited audience, Kis's slim work will touch vestigial nerves in most readers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker

[A] subtle, heroic collection of connected stories...The coming horror [of World War II] is just beneath Kis's gently swelling prose.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0811213900
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Directions; First Edition (October 17, 1998)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 118 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780811213905
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0811213905
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.7 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 5 ratings

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  1. Michael Henry Heim

    Michael Henry Heim

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    Michael Henry Heim (January 21, 1943 – September 29, 2012) was a Professor of Slavic Languages at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He was an active and prolific translator, and was fluent in Czech, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French, Italian, German, and Dutch. He died on September 29, 2012, of complications from melanoma.

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  2. Danilo Kis

    Danilo Kis

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
5 global ratings

Top review from the United States

Mirjana Vukovic
5.0 out of 5 stars Meaning of time
Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2000
Kis was born in my country. This book is the most beautifool story about growing and knowing what life is. He learned very early that there is no justice in the warld, even in cats warld. It is significant story of meaning of time.
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Top reviews from other countries

john grecu
3.0 out of 5 stars Great writer, terrible translation.
Reviewed in Canada on October 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
The translation does absolutely no justice to this book and author. The Englishof the book is slick and sanitized, with no connection to the times (last years of WW II) and location (a godforsaken hamlet in Hungary,on the Serbian border) of the events. The narrator, a dirt poor ten year old tending to the cows of rich peasants uses terms like "la di da"; meanwhile the first names of all local people are translated into English. Where are thou, Boris Davidovitch?
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