Part history, part personal tale of human suffering, this book is a wonderfully written account of the Holocaust from the point of view of a Lithuanian survivor. He describes his and his family's many close brushes with the Gestapo until finally they were separated and taken to the camps.

Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, I found to be a very moving and emotional book. It was about a family dealing with crisis during the Ethiopian Revolution, a subject I know little about. There were several points during the plot when I felt so strongly connected with the family that for a moment I felt it was my father being tortured, or my brother that was missing. Emotions run high and deep in this stirring novel. It is readable and accessible, and the words are very important to anyone interested in African history.

I loved The Discoverer by Jan Kjaerstad. The plotline is multi-directional, just as Jonas Hanson is. This suits him even more once you learn that his dream is to think multiple thoughts at the same time, and to live multiple lives all at once. His greatest desire is to save a life. He is disappointed when he does because he feels the event to be anticlimactic. What he doesn’t realize is that the life he was destined to save is his own.
Jonas Hanson’s thoughts and actions are beautiful. He not only takes the blame for his wife’s suicide, but actually takes the pains to make it appear that he killed her. It is not to save her reputation, but because he felt that his treatment of her during her life, though he never held the gun, killed her just as surely as if he had shot her.
I love Kjaerstad’s writing, and am inspired to read his other books. He built three dimensional characters whose lives were interesting and important. Often I find the back and forth between stories and time periods confusing, but somehow it always makes sense when Kjaerstad does it. He begins one story, which reminds him of another story, which makes him want to express a certain philosophy, which brings him back to the second story, and finally the first story he started makes sense.

Thanks to this wonderful publisher for bringing us translated editions of non-english books.