num_pages: 276
description: With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man - also named Jonathan Safran Foer - sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather's village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. Lit by passion, fear, guilt, memory, and hope, the characters in Everything Is Illuminated mine the black holes of history. As the search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power.An arresting blend of high comedy and great tragedy, this is a story about searching for people and places that no longer exist, for the hidden truths that haunt every family, and for the delicate but necessary tales that link past and future. Exuberant and wise, hysterically funny and deeply moving, EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED is an astonishing debut.
language: English
title: Everything Is Illuminated
titlecomplete: Everything Is Illuminated
characters: The Kolker, Lista, The Gypsy Girl, Alexander Perchov, Grandfather (Everything Is Illuminated), Safran, Jonathan Safran Foer, Yankel D, Brod
genres: Historical, Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, Holocaust, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Jewish, Contemporary
ratings_count: 177856
places: Trochenbrod, Ukraine
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Guardian First Book Award, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Corine Internationaler Buchpreis
category: Rolf Heyne Buchpreis
publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt