Saving Mozart
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Raphaël Jerusalmy’s debut novel takes the form of the journal of Otto J. Steiner, a former music critic of Jewish descent suffering from tuberculosis in a Salzburg sanatorium in 1939. Drained by his illness and isolated in the gloomy sanatorium, Steiner finds solace only in music. He is horrified to learn that the Nazis’ are transforming a Mozart festival into a fascist event. Steiner feels helpless at first, but an invitation from a friend presents him with an opportunity to fight back. Under the guise of organizing a concert for Nazi officials, Steiner formulates a plan to save Mozart that could dramatically change the course of the war.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Howard
Curtis
Howard Curtis is a British translator of French, Italian and Spanish fiction. He won the 2013 Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation for his translation from Italian of In the Sea there are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda.
Howard Curtis is a British translator of French, Italian and Spanish fiction. He won the 2013 Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation for his translation from Italian of In the Sea there are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
A musical attack in Austria in 1939: a singular and overpowering description, with humour, of the first years of Nazism. A cruel story, a bubble of revolt in full inhumanity, a peculiar wildly subversive novel. Sick humour, precise cruelty, rogish gravity, sober and sarcastic tone with a feverish rhythm.