Daleko odkud: Joseph Roth a východožidovská tradice

The new book by Sefer is written by the well-known Italian Germanist and writer Claudio Magris, who has inserted the conclusion of a bitter Jewish anecdote into the title of his text, which forms the motto of the entire volume. Two Jews somewhere in Eastern Europe talk about their plans, one of them thinking of moving to America. "And you really want to go that far?" the other asks him. "Far from where?" retorts the first.
Cladio Magris is one of the authors who deal with the theme of Central European space. His best-known work is probably his comprehensive novel-essay The Danube, in which the bed of the Central European high watercourse forms the axis of a reflection on the history and culture of the countries through which it flows. A similar axis is the world of prose by the Austrian-Jewish writer Joseph Roth in Far From Here. From it, Magris derives his account of the atmosphere of an era and a culture, that is, the slowly disappearing old world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the fate of the Jewish minority within it.
 In addition to Roth, we meet a number of famous and forgotten Yiddish authors, German, American and Russian Jewish writers. The central trio of authors, whose response to the changing situation of Judaism in modern times is repeatedly compared by the author, includes, alongside Roth, Franz Kafka and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Although Far From Here, a 450-page work, ranks among Magris's more scholarly works, it is far from academic. The author does not hide his personal bias and literature is a stimulus for him to think about the basic themes that can speak to our present situation through history.

Czech edition