Arnold Zable

Cafe Scheherazade by Arnold Zabel, is a fictionalised amalgam of individual real life stories of escape and survival of Eastern European Jews from the Nazi and Soviet regimes of the 1940's, who later settled in St Kilda, a seaside inner suburb of Melbourne Australia.

The stories blend the location of St Kilda in the 1990's with survivors gathering and reminiscing about old Europe, their escape, survival and their journeys since, at the real life Cafe Scheherazade in Acland Street in St Kilda. The stories encapsulate the loss of the people and the world they knew and extraordinary stories of survival in the most terrible circumstances. In contrast there is also the tangible relief of escape from the old life and the anticipation of the unburdened future... only for some to find that even in the safety of place and the passage of time you are never really at home in your new land. Contained amongst the tales is also the story of the real life Japanese Diplomat Chiune Sugihara, later honored by Israel as 'One of the Righteous Among Nations' which was very much an unknown story to me.

A very well written, interesting and inspirational novel that captures a St Kilda and a time and place and a people that has sadly almost disappeared with the onward march of the years. One of the best novels I have read in a long time.

Review Copy Purchased by the Reviewer from Readings Bookshop St Kilda (opposite the site of the old Cafe Scheherazade). Text Classics Publishing Australia $14.95.… (altro)

To say the subject matter within Arnold Zable’s collection of essays, The Watermill is not uplifting would be somewhat of an understatement. The wrongs perpetrated are incalculable and, quite frankly, incomprehensible to those of us that have lived lives with minimal hardship and our liberty uncurbed. However, the resilience of the people that is their focus is inspiring.

This being my first experience of Arnold Zable’s writing, I was immediately struck by the confluence of a talented observer’s objectivity and well-spring of empathy for people far and wide. His respect for lived experience, for the elderly. His appreciation of, and the value he ascribes to, the smallest moments, from a hand gesture that is a tell for a Holocaust survivor’s coping mechanism ('Republic of the Stateless'), to the perilous nature of the individual against the immensity of both nature and political/societal forces. Continue reading >> https://bookloverbookreviews.com/2020/03/the-watermill-by-arnold-zable-review-mo...… (altro)