Everything Is Illuminated

With weathered photograph in hand, a young man visits the Ukraine to find the woman who might, or might not, have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by Alex, his youthful and seriously inadequate Ukrainian translator, an old man haunted by his memories of the war, and a mongrel bitch [...]
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With weathered photograph in hand, a young man visits the Ukraine to find the woman who might, or might not, have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by Alex, his youthful and seriously inadequate Ukrainian translator, an old man haunted by his memories of the war, and a mongrel bitch named Sammy Davis Jr Jr, he is led on a quixotic search across a devastated landscape and back into an unexpected past.

As their adventure unfolds, the young man imagines - and reanimates - the history of his grandfather's village in the Ukraine, weaving a tapestry of symmetries that unites generations across time. Lit by passion, fear, sex, guilt, memory and hope, the characters of Everything is Illuminated mine the black holes of history (while stopping off for the occasional non-vegetarian meal), in an arresting blend of high comedy and deep tragedy. As their journey moves backwards in time, the fantastical history moves forwards, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power.

Ultimately this is a novel 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.