“Before All the World startles and swirls, and makes fresh the experience of language itself. It has it all: a gripping story, an original structure, and a tender, ghostly glow.” —Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
“Before All the World is beautiful and original. It is also strange, arresting, high-risk. Very quickly this novel starts to work on the mind, making itself felt in complex and powerful and visionary ways, led by the rhythm in the language and the urge to make that language new.” —Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician
“Evocative, inventive, vivid, and strange, Before All the World is a mesmeric, enrapturing read.” —Eimear McBride, author of Strange Hotel
“A ride as breathtaking as it is gratifying, Moriel Rothman-Zecher’s Before All the World deftly explores the relationship between three broken people: two pogrom refugees persecuted in their homeland by virtue of religion who cross an ocean to cross paths with a man persecuted in his own homeland by virtue of race. With tragicomic adroitness, Rothman Zecher’s meticulous prose is full of delicious humor and irony, a glorious Yidenglish tapestry confirming that the world is indeed not all darkness.” —Kia Corthron, author of Moon and the Mars
“Before All the World is a song about survival and a refusal to be erased. Daringly crafted and poetically told, this novel is a celebration of Moriel Rothman-Zecher’s extraordinary talent, compassion, and love for humanity. To read Before All the World is to abandon all of our expectations and privileges so that the torch of curiosity and the beauty of words can lead us to unexpected places, where we can see ourselves in those whom we might have considered the Other.” —Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, author of The Mountains Sing
"This novel of inconvenient truths is a triumph of the aesthetic and moral imagination.” —Jewish Book Council
“A passionate, poetic coming of age story set in a mine field, brilliantly capturing the intensity of feeling on both sides of the conflict.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“I loved Sadness Is a White Bird for its profound meditation on how we each strive to hold ourselves morally and politically to account, an individual resistance to a world of walls and violence, in defiance of the belief that ‘Each man has limited space in his heart, for sadness and for sorrow and for regret.’” —Madeleine Thien, author of the Man Booker Prize Finalist DO NOT SAY WE HAVE NOTHING
“Passionate, topical, and thoughtful, this heartbreaking tale is vital reading for anyone who cares about the future of this part of the world.” —Library Journal (starred review)
"In a sense, one must travel to Palestine in order to experience the grief and the rage of life under occupation. What can go too often ignored is the complexity and the humanity: the love, lies, lust alive in the same. Rothman-Zecher's brilliant debut eschews political polemic in favor of nuanced narrative, giving us a love triangle to rival Bertolucci's The Dreamers, set against the backdrop of the most heartbreaking conflict of our time. Intelligent, sexy, dazzlingly beautiful—no less for being utterly heartwrenching." —Taiye Selasi, author of GHANA MUST GO
“Moving . . . Entertaining . . . It’s enlightening to watch some of our most masterly literary portraitists restore the warts and wardrobes, the motivations and machinations to those whose stories have been stripped down to surnames or pseudonyms.” —Monica Youn,New York Times Book Review
“Powerful, inspiring essays… poet Moriel Rothman-Zecher (Sadness Is a White Bird) skillfully traces the repercussions of a KKK leader’s overturned conviction in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Dramatic testimonies... radiant with telling details, vital portraits, and explosive facts.... This sensitive, galvanizing, and landmark gathering brings the occupation into sharp focus as a tragedy of fear and tyranny, a monumental failure of compassion and justice, a horrific obstacle to world peace.” —Booklist (starred review)
“On the 50th anniversary of Israeli occupation of Palestine, top writers bear witness to oppression and despair.... moving, heartbreaking, and infuriating.... Deeply unsettling, important stories call for urgent responses to the Middle East conflict.”—KirkusReviews (starred review)
