Aharon Apelfeld (1932-2018) wrote numerous books, 12 of them in our fiction collection have all proven very popular with Mechanics’ Institute members. He wrote the most recent one to come out in English translation in 2005. Poland, a green land is a departure from his usual historical fiction writing. This story has more autobiographical elements and takes place in the present (but with echoes of the past). A Shopkeeper in Tel Aviv travels to his parents’ birthplace in Poland to discover two different “Polands.” People in his parents’ hometown greet him warmly at first, but then their mood turns dark when he tries to buy the tombstones from a desecrated Jewish cemetery that an earlier generation made into cornerstones for the town square.
