"I was rather like Moses coming from Mount Sinai, except that I had forgotten what I had seen there and what God had spoken to me about."
Jakob Wassermann (1873-1934) was one of the foremost writers of his day. In this new translation of his emotive autobiography "My Way as a German and a Jew", Wassermann tells us of the agony of being caught between two powerful traditions, the German and the Jewish. With great perspicacity and fierceness, he probes the question of belonging, a concept which also passes through the mental filter of many children today who come from a multi-ethnic background. With wry cynicism and a keen eye, the author makes his way through a life subjected to the pull and push of both traditions. Wassermann's autobiography is an uncompromising quest to understand why the German core of his character was negated and what that meant for him and his work. In "My Way as a German and a Jew", Wassermann has given us universal, timeless writing. A book of today from a voice of the past.