"POWERFUL AND ORIGINAL." —THE TIMES
"REWARDING AND WHOLLY ENGAGING." —HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY
"ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND POWERFUL NOVELS OF RECENT GERMAN LITERATURE." —DEUTSCHLANDRADIO KULTUR
Hypnotically lyrical and intensely moving, Steven Uhly's epic novel set in the wake of World War II is a finely nuanced yet shattering exploration of universal themes: love, hatred, doubt, survival, guilt, humanity, and redemption.
One night in autumn 1944, a gunshot echoes through the alleyways of a small town in occupied Poland. An SS officer is shot dead by a young Polish Jew, Margarita Ejzenstain. In retaliation, his commander orders the execution of thirty-seven Poles—one for every year of the dead man's life. First hidden by a sympathetic German couple, Margarita must then flee the brutal advance of the Soviet army with her newborn baby.
So begins a thrilling panorama of intermingled destinies and events that reverberate from that single act of defiance. Kingdom of Twilight follows the lives of Jewish refugees and a German family resettled from Bukovina, as well as a former SS officer, chronicling the geographical and psychological dislocation generated by war. A quest for identity and truth takes them from refugee camps to Lübeck, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and New York, as they try to make sense of a changed world, and of their place in it.
