Présentation de l'éditeur
Itsik Malpesh was born the son of a goose-plucking factory manager during the Russian pogroms - his life saved on the night it began by the young daughter of a kosher slaughterer. Or so he believes…
Exiled during the war, Itsik eventually finds himself in New York, working as a typesetter and writing poetry to his muse, the butcher's daughter, whom he is sure he will never see again. But it is here in New York that Itsik is unexpectedly reunited with his greatest love - and, later, his greatest enemy - with results both serendipitous and tragic. His story is recounted in his memoirs thanks to the most unlikely of translators - a twenty-one-year-old Boston Catholic college student who, in meeting Itsik, has embarked upon a great lie that will define his future and the most extraordinary friendship he'll ever know.
Revue de presse
'An extraordinary novel, and Itsik Malpesh is one of literature's most stunning achievements'
Junot Díaz
‘Exhilarating and enchanting… Peter Manseau is a born storyteller’
Richard Mason
‘An absorbing immigrant’s tale, an epic that intersperses a love story with great insight into Jewish culture’
Catholic Herald
'[Songs for the Butcher's Daughter] will leave the reader bedazzled and riffling back through the book to recapture the pivotal acts that lead to such a satisfying outcome. I'm willing to bet that Manseau is on his way to a Nobel Prize in Literature.'
Australian Country Style
'Peter Manseau proves that it doesn't seem to matter how many stories of anti-Semitism are published, the reader's sense of incredulity at the victim's suffering remains strong'
Courier Mail (Australia)
'Witnessing a mind such as Manseau's at work, weaving in and out, ducking and diving, racing along, is always a pleasure... A virtuoso performance by a gifted, poetic writer with the guts to tackle, in an intimate and not altogether uncritical way, a part of history that Jews might often think that no one else could grasp'
Sydney Morning Herald
'Exquisitely beautiful… A completely original and exciting novel that, from its first few lines, holds the reader mesmerised. We are in the hands of a supreme storyteller, an author of wit and charm, one who has a breathtaking flair for language. This is a seriously impressive and accomplished work for a debut novel, identifying Manseau as a writer of great and exciting potential, one able to see the world vividly, even through other people's eyes'
Weekend Australian
'A racketing story, an artful meditation on the joys and perils of translation, and a lyrical tribute to Yiddish culture, with its zany humour and shadow lines of sorrow'
Age (Australia)
'I have to admit, I was intrigued by both the title and the cover of this book, long before I had the opportunity to open its jacket. What I wasn't prepared for was how completely I would fall into it. I was swept along by the story, the marvellous humanity of both the main characters and the ones that only appear in occasional vignettes, the warmth and humour of the telling, as well as the revelation of the richness of a vanishing culture… If you want a big theme book that is both engrossing and well written, you need look no further. I have no hesitation in making this my book of the month'
Booktopia
'There are two extraordinary things about Peter Manseau's Songs for the Butcher's Daughter; the first is the novel, the second is the author himself. Manseau has written with profound depth and aching beauty about an old Jewish poet whose life converges with that of his young Catholic translator... The author, steeped in Christian tradition, has written a book which any elderly Jew born in Russia or Poland might think had been written by Saul Bellow or Isaac Bashevis Singer. Not only does Manseau get his dialogue spot on, but his subtle appreciation of the nuances of Yiddish literature and culture is extraordinary. This is a wonderful book'
Alan Gold, goodreading (Australia)
'Manseau paints an intimate pictur
