Diamonds of the Night - Tapa dura

"Arnost Lustig is one of the leading contemporary Czech fiction writers, and certainly the most important Jewish writer of Bohemia to have survived the Holocaust."Diamonds of the Night," "Night and Hope," and"Darkness Casts No Shadow"remain the core of Lustig's oeuvre . . . These books stand comparison with the best works written on the subject, such as Tadeusz Borowski's"This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen."" Josef Skvorecky"

The stories in this collection take place in the Nazi concentration campus, on death transports, and during the last turbulent days of World War II. Lustig explores the very essence of humanity. His characters, mostly children and old people, are ravaged by torture and loss. Faced by conditions of extreme inhumanity and moral nightmare, each must fight his way forward realizing his particular identity and fate, salvaging some form of inner sanity and decency. Out of this chaos, in moments of resistance and improbable acts of heroism, Lustig's characters discover truths about the human condition which shine like diamonds in the night of Nazi terror.