ANNIHILATION

Like Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, Annihilation is about a day in thelife of a town - in this case, a Polish-Jewish town shortly before WorldWar II. The reader participates in the life of the town instant by instant- from the moment when the local courtesan pours the contents of herchamber pot out her open window up to the moment when the city policemenreturn to night duty. For the narrator, every object, every person andevent belongs to the world he strives to save from impending annihilation:the landscape of beer drops left on a counter, the dance of the Hasidimbefore the Town Hall, the taste of mint drops in an attorney's mouth. Asthe minutes on the Town Hall's clock measure the day's passing, and as thisday's passing brings the town one day closer to its historicalannihilation, a Book of the Day writes itself, preserving the town inmemory against the ravages of time and history. Already a success in Polandand in translation in France, Germany, and Italy, Piotr Szewc's novel hasbeen compared to the novels of Proust and to the paintings of Chagall.