Caroline's Antonio Tabucchi Week and the New Literature and War Readalong

As you know, I was captivated by Caroline's Literature and War Readalong last month and am participating this month. Luckily I was able to find the title scheduled to be discussed on August 31st, The Story of a Life by Aharon Appelfeld, who has lived in Israel since after World War II. Yes, he's a Holocaust survivor. He burrows deep into sensory memory for his description of his youngest years in this memoir, reminding me a bit of Marcel Proust. I'm enjoying it, mostly because it is so different from other Holocaust memoirs, of which I've read a large number.

And, the week of September 17-23, Caroline is hosting an Antonio Tabucchi Week, which will gather reflections from readers who have read any number of  Tabucchi's oeuvre. I have never read or heard of this author and have read so very few novels by Italian writers, that I've ordered Pereira Declares, a novel set in Portugal during the Fascist 1930s. Why Portugal? Tabucchi adores Portugal, and is a professor of Portuguese literature. I know zilch about Portugal, other than a movie about the children of Fatima, and the fact that it has a long border on the ocean.

Caroline is having so much fun with these events that I think I might consider hosting one, if I'm able to get my readership back into fighting order.