Andre Schwarz-Bart - The Last of the Just

* André Schwarz-Bart - THE LAST OF THE JUST (Atheneum, 1960). Translated by Stephen Becker. 374 pp. -- PDF


THE LAST OF THE JUST [Le Dernier des justes] (1959) was the first book by French novelist André Schwarz-Bart (1928-2006). It won the 1959 Prix de Goncourt, France's highest literary prize, and the Jerusalem Prize in 1967.

The novel is based on a Jewish tradition that 36 "just men" are born in every generation to take the burden of the world's suffering upon themselves and justify the purpose of humankind to God. It traces the story of a Jewish family, the Levys, from the time of the Crusades and culminating in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, who are persecuted to death, becoming part of the catastrophic history of the Jewish people.

It is an enduring and unforgettable classic that the New York Times said "transcends the definition of fiction: part history, part vision, forged into a single echoing, terrifying outcry, at once lush and sardonic, full of color and fury and a heart-breaking richness."


Reviews

"A drama that seizes you and will not let you go." -- New York Herald Tribune

"A monumental masterpiece." -- Saturday Review

"A triumphant monument to the nobility and tenacity of the human spirit." -- Chicago Sun-Times

"It is a cry from the soul which alone makes sense of the dreadful events of our time. Brilliant." -- New York Post

"A work of art, deeply human and religious." -- Christian Science Monitor

"No one who reads it can ever be quite the same again. Though it is a stark tragedy on an epic scale, it is told with subtle and warm understanding of the foibles of mankind and for the irony and humor of man's way in this strange world." -- William L. Shirer, author of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"