What a book! Dasa Drndic from Croatia researched history of the Third Reich the Nazi era as it affected people in and near Trieste Italy. Some of it is fiction some is real. It is a painful book to read. Some times I would ask myself Why are you reading this? then I turned back to the book and continued.The woman from city near Trieste who lived through that had relationship with a Nazi and a child who disappeared from her and her father tried to hide their jewishness by going to Church and being sort of christian. She was never in a camp. I had no feeling for her no connection to her and I found her a flat character. Where this book excels is in the research of the Nazis and their history of evil.
I dont think she writes fiction well - and is more of a historian researcher reteller of truths.

ohhhhhh fuck

Trieste, written by Croatian author Daša Drndić, is one of the best books I've ever read, as well as one of the most challenging. The experimental novel is centered on Haya Tedeschi, an elderly woman raised in an Italian Jewish family that converted to Catholicism during the Mussolini era. Trieste details Haya's family's complicity with the fascist order around her, which has agonized her for the rest of her life. Even as the horrors around them grow, the Tedeschis purposely remain as ignorant as possible to avoid persecution. As Drndić writes, "the Tedeschi family are a civilian family, bystanders who keep their mouths shut, but when they do speak, they sign up to fascism." The most striking feature of the book is the testimonies and anecdotes of real Nazi officials and collaborators, as well as Jewish victims and refugees, interspersed throughout the novel. Drndić's eloquent prose is translated powerfully by Ellen Elias-Bursać, to the point I forgot I was reading a translation, which almost never happens. Ultimately, Trieste is a haunting mediation on complicity, moral responsibility, and justice. Rating: 5/5

I am a huge WWII geek. As in I will read practically anything under the sun if it has to do with WWII. I've read a lot of war novels before, but this one blew everything else out of the water. It is truly a war novel like no other.

The Ups: Remember how I said Homegoing was the most ambitious novel I'd read this year? I lied...it's definitely Trieste.

This book borders on the line between non-fiction and fiction so often that I can't even tell which parts are fiction or non-fiction. There are SO many facts imbedded into the text, which is why a lot of readers grew tired of the book after a while. It was overwhelming, but I decided to stick with it, especially because the facts were essential in creating a large picture of how terrible and huge the impacts of Nazi Germany were and are on the world.

The general theme of the story, and a quote that is repeated multiple times, is "Behind every name, there is a story." In fact in the middle of the novel there is a list of 9,000 Jews who were deported from or killed in Italy between 1943-1945. There is also a section describing the lives of many German officers and their terrible actions, and what little/no punishment they received. The horror and injustice and anger is enough to make your head spin, but that is what is necessary.

Haya is referred to as a "bystander" of sorts, a citizen who turned her face away from all the terrible things happening to her friends around her. She, like so many others, is silent and doesn't speak up against the Nazi regime. Later, however, through her search for her missing son, it is shown that she is a victim as well; her son was stolen from her by the Catholic church to be used to purify the German race.

This is a story that is trying to bring truth to a historical event some people are trying to forget. It shows the collaboration of the Church and the government in prosecuting the Jewish, it shows the corruption and secrecy that stills goes on TO THIS DAY regarding documents, it shows, most importantly, how everyone is a victim when we forget, when we say: "It was too terrible, I don't want to hear about it."

It was certainly not an easy book to get through. It wasn't graphic or extremely disturbing, but it was just so packed with facts and truth that it was unsettling in that respect.

The Downs: I do think it is not an easily approachable novel form. I found myself wishing the plot would speed up, or being confused because I was skipping between German facts and Haya's story. I wish it was a little more approachable so its impact could reach more readers...but maybe without all its element it would not have been so powerful.

total untouchable genius in about a million different ways. why they let anyone else even think about writing a book, i have no idea