Description
National Jewish Book Award Winner: A family saga set in WWII-era South Africa offering both "page-turning thrills [and] a painful meditation on destiny" (NPR, All Things Considered).
Called "a latter-day Exodus" by Kirkus Reviews, The Lion Seeker is an epic historical novel centered on the life of Isaac Helger. The son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, he runs around the streets of Johannesburg as a young hooligan and dreams of getting rich. But his parents are still haunted by the memories of the anti-Semitic pogroms they escaped, even as Isaac secretly pursues a relationship with a gentile girl.
As the Nazi threat rises, Isaac is caught between his mother's urgent ambition to bring her sisters to safety out of the old world, and his own desire to enjoy the freedoms of the new. But soon his mother's carefully guarded secret takes them to the diamond mines, where mysteries are unveiled in the desert rocks and Isaac begins to learn the bittersweet reality of success bought at any cost.
Author: Kenneth Bonert
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 09/02/2014
Pages: 576
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 8.22h x 5.30w x 1.47d
ISBN13: 9780544334519
ISBN10: 0544334515
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Historical | 20th Century | World War II
- Fiction | Coming of Age
- Fiction | Jewish
Called "a latter-day Exodus" by Kirkus Reviews, The Lion Seeker is an epic historical novel centered on the life of Isaac Helger. The son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, he runs around the streets of Johannesburg as a young hooligan and dreams of getting rich. But his parents are still haunted by the memories of the anti-Semitic pogroms they escaped, even as Isaac secretly pursues a relationship with a gentile girl.
As the Nazi threat rises, Isaac is caught between his mother's urgent ambition to bring her sisters to safety out of the old world, and his own desire to enjoy the freedoms of the new. But soon his mother's carefully guarded secret takes them to the diamond mines, where mysteries are unveiled in the desert rocks and Isaac begins to learn the bittersweet reality of success bought at any cost.
Author: Kenneth Bonert
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 09/02/2014
Pages: 576
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 8.22h x 5.30w x 1.47d
ISBN13: 9780544334519
ISBN10: 0544334515
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Historical | 20th Century | World War II
- Fiction | Coming of Age
- Fiction | Jewish
About the Author
KENNETH BONERT's fiction has appeared in McSweeney's, Grain, and the Fiddlehead, and his journalism has appeared in the Globe and Mail and other publications. Born in South Africa, Bonert is the grandson of Lithuanian immigrants.