Tales from the Borderlands

“Bartov’s focus on Buczacz both personalizes this story and allows him to think in intimate ways about how the past might have gone differently. His fixation on the town in this project is profound.”—Kate Brown, Times Literary Supplement

“[A]n erudite, highly readable book.”—Anna Wylegała, H-Soz Kult

“This remarkable and moving book tells, on the basis of first-person accounts, the story of the emergence, development and destruction of the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional world of East Galicia. It is essential reading for all those interested in inter-ethnic conflict and in the way nationalism has come to dominate the modern world.”—Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University

“A powerful and moving evocation of Jewish life and history in Galicia. The narrative elegantly intertwines history, legend, literature, and personal reminiscences, together with Bartov’s powerful observations. It is a poignant commemoration of an erased civilization—the annihilated Jewish communities of the East European borderlands.”—Saul Friedlander, author of Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt

“A deeply personal, learned and literary coda to Bartov’s studies of Buczacz. Beautifully written and steeped in stories from Galician borderlands and Eretz Israel—a masterful achievement.”—Jan T. Gross, Princeton University

“The world of Galician Jewry is, as Omer Bartov states, ‘irretrievably lost.’ Yet his book is more than an elegy. A work of erudition and personal revelation, it brings the diverse voices of the Galitzianers back to life.”—John-Paul Himka, University of Alberta