Daniel Stein, Interpreter

Daniel Stein, Interpreter is already seen by many as the great Russian novel of our time. Winner of the Russian National Literary Prize and the Simone de Beauvoir Prize, Ludmila Ulitskaya has earned accolades abroad for this groundbreaking work, at last available in English.

The novel tells the story of Daniel Stein, a Polish Jew who miraculously survives the Holocaust by working for the Gestapo as an interpreter. After the war, he converts to Catholicism, becomes a priest, enters the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, and emigrates to Israel. Despite this seemingly impossible progression, the life and destiny of Daniel Stein are not an invention — the character is based on the life of Oswald Rufeisen, the real Brother Daniel. This innovative, furious, and funny book, compiled as a series of documents — letters, diary entries, postcards, and other records — ranges from before the war to modern times and from the shtetl to Haifa to Boston. It tells of a life full of contradictions and undaunted faith.