Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

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About
Jonathan Safran Foer

Everything is Illuminated

» Jonathan Safran Foer

Penguin
Paperback : 05 Jun 2003

£8.99

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'An astonishing feat of writing: hilariously funny and deeply serious, a gripping narrative. Extraordinary'
The Times

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Synopsis

A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, however, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a ‘blind’ old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive – a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down …

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Reviews

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Critic Review:

‘An astonishing feat of writing: hilariously funny and deeply serious, a gripping narrative. Extraordinary’
The Times

‘Genuinely gripping, consistently entertaining, dazzlingly imaginative’
Evening Standard

‘Outrageously ambitious, extraordinarily moving and utterly successful’
Financial Times

‘Hilarious, exhilarating, often deeply moving’
Jewish Chronicle

‘Serious, funny, yet achingly heartbreaking’
Herald

‘Powerful and shocking. Burns with harsh and sincere emotion’
List

‘Spectacular – extremely funny, linguistically brilliant and at times very moving’
Observer

‘A work of genius. A new kind of novel … after it things will never be the same again. It will blow you away’
The Times

‘Wise, funny, unbearably sad. Speeds across the sky like a new-century comet heralding great events in the asteroid belt of fiction’
Financial Times

‘Astonishing … a shattering climax. A work of formidable talent’
Independent

‘An engaging work of wit and invention’
New Statesman

‘Effervescent and recklessly unordinary … so vibrant and playful … calling to mind Philip Roth, James Joyce, Laurence Sterne and Milan Kundera’
The Times Literary Supplement

‘A walloping debut’
Time Out