The Girl with the Leica

Description

1st August 1937. A parade of red flags marches through Paris. It is the funeral procession for Gerda Taro, the first female photographer to be killed on a battlefield. Robert Capa, who leads the procession, is devastated. They have been happy together: he taught her how to use the Leica before they left together to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Other figures from Gerda's past are in the crowd: Ruth Cerf, her friend from Leipzig, who shared the hardships of their first years in Paris after feeling from Germany; Willy Chardack, who resigned himself to the role of loyal companion after Gerda snubbed him for Georg Kuritzkes, a fighter in the International Brigades. For all of them, Gerda will remain a stronger and more vivid presence than her image of anti-fascist heroine. It is her who binds together a narrative spanning distant times and places, bringing back to life the snapshots of these young people and the challenges they faced in the 1930s, from economic depression to the rise of nazism, to the hostility towards refugees in France. But for those who loved her, those young years would remain a time when, as long as Gerda was alive, everything seemed possible.

Born in Munich in a Polish Jewish family, Helena Janeczek has lived in Italy for over thirty years. With The Girl with the Leica she has won the Strega Prize, Italy's most prestigious literary award, the Bagutta Prize, and was a finalist for the Campiello Prize. Ann Goldstein is one of the most accomplished translators from the Italian working today. Best known for her translations of Elena Ferrante's oeuvre, she has also brought to Anglo-Saxon readers novels by Primo Levi, Pierpaolo Pasolini, Alessandro Baricco and other classic and contemporary Italian writers.

Praise for The Girl with the Leica "Exceptionally intricate...Janeczek's demanding, allusion-saturated, multiperspective novel portrays a circle of valiant dissidents."--Booklist (Starred Review) "A daring attempt to capture the life of a revolutionary woman."--The Guardian "This mosaic of vignettes and images brings a complex courageous woman back into focus."--BBC Culture "Fans of historical fiction featuring strong, forward-thinking female characters will be enthralled."--Publishers Weekly "A biography; a feminist parable; a declaration of love for photography; a narrative tableau of the 1930s: The Girl with the Leica is all of this at once. Helena Janeczek worked on this book for six years. And it shows." --Il Sole 24 Ore "Helena Janeczek [ . . .] is Italy's most eclectic writer. While attentive to the narrative, she's obsessed with historical reality: The Girl with the Leica is her most beautiful book yet. In fact, each new book seems to surpass the previous one - until you realise that they are all part of the same encyclopaedia of the human experience." --L'Espresso "In The Girl with the Leica Helena Janeczek brings into focus a world of young artists, photographers, and 'intellectual refugees' caught in the storm of 20th-century history, between one war and the other. Still, her prodigious characters remain capable of happiness, vital, and 'free from everything'. Janeczek's novel perfectly reproduces their sparkling passions." --Vanity Fair "In the novel, Gerda [Taro] comes to life in the recollection of three friends who loved her. She's vital, brave, elusive yet unforgettable. The irresistible fascination she exerted on her contemporaries retains all its power today.' --Internazionale "A story of bravery and determination that leaves us breathless and with a sense of emptiness, as if we have known [Gerda Taro] personally." --Repubblica