1947, Where Now Begins

"Originally published in Swedish as 1947 by Natur & Kultur, Stockholm, in 2016"--Title page verso.

About the author

Elisabeth Åsbrink is a nonfiction writer and journalist. She has worked for the Swedish National Television for fifteen years as a reporter and editor for news shows, cultural programs and investigative journalism. Her book And in the Vienna Woods the Trees Remain (Och i Wienerwald står träden kvar) received worldwide attention for revealing new information about IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad's ties to Nazism. It won several awards, including the August Prize for Best Swedish Non-Fiction Book of the Year (2011). Åsbrink made her debut as a playwright with Tracks (Räls), based on the authentic minutes from a meeting convened by Herman Göring in 1938, and has since written four plays.

Summary

An award-winning writer captures a year that defined the modern world, intertwining historical events around the globe with key moments from her personal history.

The year 1947 marks a turning point in the twentieth century. Peace with Germany becomes a tool to fortify the West against the threats of the Cold War. The CIA is created, Israel is about to be born, Simone de Beauvoir experiences the love of her life, an ill George Orwell is writing his last book, and Christian Dior creates the hyper-feminine New Look as women are forced out of jobs and back into the home. 

In the midst of it all, a ten-year-old Hungarian-Jewish boy resides in a refugee camp for children of parents murdered by the Nazis. This year he has to make the decision of a lifetime, one that will determine his own fate and that of his daughter yet to be born, Elisabeth.

Additional text

“When journalist Asbrink was ten, her father left her a letter that was 19 lines long. The first 18 expressed his love; the last sentence said never to pity yourself. When Asbrink writes about 1947, she honors her father and others who disappeared under Nazi rule...During this year, writer Simone de Beauvoir went to the United States and had a passionate affair with writer Nelson Algren. A Swedish fascist created escape routes for Nazi friends. Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan wrote poetry about ultimate loss. Primo Levi’s memoirs were accepted by a publisher. George Orwell began work on his masterpiece, 1984...For the first time, genocide is recognized as a crime...Asbrink weaves personal and historical stories to show how people migrated across the world, unaccepted in their adopted countries...This superb book deserves a wide audience. In telling history through disparate voices, Asbrink effectively descries the seas of change, as times change quicker than people do.” —LIBRARY JOURNAL, *STARRED* REVIEW 

"Unearthing many forgotten details, Åsbrink illuminates this pivotal year after the end of WWII, adroitly revealing how profoundly 1947 shaped the decades that followed. Åsbrink takes an expansive, month-by-month look at world events, from the partitioning of India to escaping SS soldiers in Argentina to the grand mufti of Jerusalem to Billie Holiday topping the charts in DownBeat magazine to Simone de Beauvoir visiting New York for the first time. Åsbrink writes with sardonic passion in an immediately striking tone...A sweeping cacophony of modernity." —BOOKLIST

“Among innumerable turning points in history, 1947, just two years after World War II ended, is a year worth review. Åsbrink's book, translated from the Swedish, makes some of that year's neglected history and high drama tangible and meaningful. With a technique reminiscent of John Dos Passos' "newsreels," the author records events from across the world (Paris, Palestine, New York, Los Angeles, Budapest, Berlin, Delhi, etc.), using the present tense to create a sense of immediacy…Throughout the book, Åsbrink artfully selects her narratives…A skillful and illuminating way of presenting, to wonderful effect, the cultural, political, and personal history of a year that changed the world.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Elisabeth Åsbrink writes sentences that make one gasp in admiration…[1947] should be read for its poetry, its insights, and the interweaving of personal and political judgments.” —SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

“An intriguing account of a number of significant events which occurred in a year when the world was beginning to come to terms with the fallout from the Second World War…Åsbrink deftly brings together the tangle, the mess, the aspirations, and the disappointments which characterized the period and which for her resonate personally through her family history.” —Rosemary Ashton, author of One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, and the Great Stink of 1858 

“1947: When Now Begins from Swedish journalist and writer Elisabeth Åsbrink arrives in Australian bookshops to tell that story, and has been lauded for its new way of treating history…Serving as another example of the way non-fiction is providing much of the most innovative approaches to contemporary writing, Åsbrink’s book introduces a series of apparently unrelated episodes from 1947, all of which she sees as having continued resonance into our contemporary world…This is a wonderfully accessible account of a year.” —TRANSMISSION PRESS

Product details

• Authors: Elisabeth Asbrink, Elisabeth/ Graham Asbrink, Elisabeth Åsbrink, Fiona Graham
• Assisted by: Fiona Graham (Translation)
• Publisher: Other press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.01.2018
• EAN: 9781590518960
• ISBN: 978-1-59051-896-0
• Series: Pop Classics; Pop Classic Picture Books; Pop Classic Picture Books
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > 20th century (up to 1945); Non-fiction book