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The Forty Days of Musa Dagh to be reissued on April 24
March 24, 2012 - 15:35 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Best known for The Song of Bernadette (1941), which
was turned into an Oscar-winning movie, Jewish writer Franz Werfel
(1890-1945) was also the author of one of the most popular
Book-of-the-Month Club titles ever, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,
Publishers Weekly says.
For the past 10 years, the book has been out-of-print, but publisher
David Godine will reissue it next month on Genocide Remembrance Day,
April 24, in an uncut $22.95 trade paperback edition translated by
James Reidel that restores roughly 25% of the original German text. To
underscore the importance of Werfel's work, Godine is also publishing
the first English-language edition of the author's novella Pale Blue
Ink in a Lady's Hand (1940), also translated by Reidel, about an
Austrian bureaucrat, his trophy wife, and a Jewish woman from his
past.
Although the story of The Forty Days resonated in much of the U.S. and
Europe from its initial publication, it was by no means universally
embraced. In February 1934, the German government seized copies of the
novel, and while Armenians revere the book, the Turks deny that
Genocide took place and have tried to undermine it.
In the 1930s, pressure from the Turkish and French governments
prevented a film based on the book from being made, and more recently,
opposition to the novel swayed Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone to
give up on the idea of turning it into a movie. Despite reports that
Armenia's National Film Center is in negotiations with Steven
Spielberg and Schindler's List screenwriter Steven Zaillian for a
movie based on it to commemorate the centennial of the massacre, a
recent article in the Atlantic calls it `unlikely.'
Film or no, Godine is hoping to capture review attention for its new
edition, which editor Susan Barba, the granddaughter of a survivor of
the Armenian Genocide, regards as `my book.' The press delayed
publication for two years in order to get it right, making it both the
longest novel, and the book with the longest gestation period,
published by Godine.
From: A. Papazian
March 24, 2012 - 15:35 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Best known for The Song of Bernadette (1941), which
was turned into an Oscar-winning movie, Jewish writer Franz Werfel
(1890-1945) was also the author of one of the most popular
Book-of-the-Month Club titles ever, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh,
Publishers Weekly says.
For the past 10 years, the book has been out-of-print, but publisher
David Godine will reissue it next month on Genocide Remembrance Day,
April 24, in an uncut $22.95 trade paperback edition translated by
James Reidel that restores roughly 25% of the original German text. To
underscore the importance of Werfel's work, Godine is also publishing
the first English-language edition of the author's novella Pale Blue
Ink in a Lady's Hand (1940), also translated by Reidel, about an
Austrian bureaucrat, his trophy wife, and a Jewish woman from his
past.
Although the story of The Forty Days resonated in much of the U.S. and
Europe from its initial publication, it was by no means universally
embraced. In February 1934, the German government seized copies of the
novel, and while Armenians revere the book, the Turks deny that
Genocide took place and have tried to undermine it.
In the 1930s, pressure from the Turkish and French governments
prevented a film based on the book from being made, and more recently,
opposition to the novel swayed Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone to
give up on the idea of turning it into a movie. Despite reports that
Armenia's National Film Center is in negotiations with Steven
Spielberg and Schindler's List screenwriter Steven Zaillian for a
movie based on it to commemorate the centennial of the massacre, a
recent article in the Atlantic calls it `unlikely.'
Film or no, Godine is hoping to capture review attention for its new
edition, which editor Susan Barba, the granddaughter of a survivor of
the Armenian Genocide, regards as `my book.' The press delayed
publication for two years in order to get it right, making it both the
longest novel, and the book with the longest gestation period,
published by Godine.
From: A. Papazian