The Devil’s Workshop
ABOUT
THE BOOK
‘The devil had his workshop here in Belarus. The deepest graves are in Belarus. But nobody knows about them’
A young boy grows up in Terezín – an infamous fortress town with a sinister past. Together with his friends he plays happily in this former Nazi prison, scouting the tunnels for fragments of history under the careful eye of one of its survivors, Uncle Lebo, until one day there is an accident, and he is forced to leave.
Returning to Terezín many years later, he joins Lebo’s campaign to preserve the town, but before long the authorities impose a brutal crack-down, chaos ensues, and the narrator finds himself fleeing to Belarus, where fresh horrors drive him ever closer to the evils he had hoped to escape.
Bold, brilliant and blackly comic, The Devil’s Workshop paints a deeply troubling portrait of two countries dealing with their ghosts and asks: at what point do we consign the past to history?
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Jáchym Topol has received many book and writer’s prizes. His books are acclaimed by critics and readers. The Devil’s Workshop is about a young boy who grows up in Terezin, an infamous fortress town with a sinister past. The English translation of The Devil’s Workshop received the 2013 English PEN Award for Writing in Translation.