Amazon.com (ISBN 0805031804, Hardcover)

Parini's engaging novel of intellectual and personal history re-imagines the life of essayist and philosopher Walter Benjamin, one of this century's most brilliant literary and cultural critics. Benjamin, a German Jew forced into exile by Hitler, was not well-known at the time of his suicide in 1940 but in recent years has gained widespread admiration in academic circles for his subtle insights into the nature of literature. Parini's story, written in the voice of Benjamin's real-life longtime friend, Gershom Scholem, the scholar of Jewish mysticism, follows Benjamin on his tragic yet amazing journey to escape the increasingly dangerous Europe--all the while writing a 1000-page manuscript that would become his life's masterwork.