The Absent Moon: A Memoir of Inherited Trauma in the Shadow of the Holocaust (Paperback) - Luiz Schwarcz

'A beautiful work that is in turn haunting, touching and redemptive' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 'A profoundly emotional book, and a brave one' THE NEW YORKER 'Generous in spirit, devoid of self-pity, and an authentic literary achievement' ANDREW SOLOMON When Luiz Schwarcz was a child, he knew very little about his grandfather Laios, a Hungarian Jew. Only later would he learn that Laios had ordered his son, Luiz's father, to leap from a train taking them to a Nazi death camp, while Laios himself was carried on to his death. What Luiz did know was that his father's melancholia haunted the house he grew up in. Compassionate and tender, The Absent Moon interrogates a personal story of inherited trauma through a family history of murder, silence and the long echo of the Holocaust across generations. 'Brave, honest, devastating, and hopeful ... Schwarcz is a masterful storyteller' ARIANA NEUMANN 'A lyrical and intimate portrait of the author's lifelong, harrowing battle with depression' ABRAHAM VERGHESE

About the Author

Luiz Schwarcz was born in Sao Paulo, in 1956. He began his career as an editor at Brasiliense and later founded Companhia das Letras, in 1986. In 2017, he received the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the author of the children's books Minha vida de goleiro (1999) and Em busca do Thesouro da Juventude (2003), and the short story collections Discurso sobre o capim (2005) and Linguagem de sinais (2010).