El Book Cafe

1) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This book brought Markus Zusak Book Browse Ruby Award in 2007. Beside its story and writing style the topic that the author has chosen, distinguished the book from other books on world war II. The book is about the pain which ordinary and public people in Germany suffer during the world war II. We usually have heard about other side of the story, officers, soldiers but less about German people, especially if these people are Jewish families in Germany. 

​

2) The War by Marguerite Duras

The War (also translated as “the pain” with original French title of La Douleur) is a true story of Duras during the period that she had been waiting for her partner’s return from German’s captivity. Duras is transparent and brave in the story and she reveals feelings that not many people dare talking about. This heart touching book is not only a story or one life, it shows how one beloved person’s loss or captivity can affect all surrounding people’s lives. How we have a limited capacity when it comes to pain, even if we claim being brave how beneath our skin the pain might kill us little by little. What makes readers astonished is the return scene when what Duras had been expecting for months turns out to be very different from reality.

​

3) All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 

This book (original German title Im Westen nichts Neues) was first published in 1929, after the world war I, and reveals the pain people who have been in war suffer and carry for the rest of their lives even if the war is over.  Remarque’s pen is brave and simple, yet he shows the most complicated aspects of human’s lives affected by the war.

​

​