Non­fic­tion

Birth Cer­tifi­cate: The Sto­ry of Dani­lo Kis

Mark Thomp­son
  • Review
By – July 12, 2013

Yugoslav writer Dani­lo Kiš (19351989) may not be well-known to Amer­i­can-Jew­ish read­ers, but this ambi­tious biog­ra­phy at least offers a con­text for under­stand­ing Kiš’s very real con­tri­bu­tions to Jew­ish/Ser­bo-Croa­t­ian let­ters. Born to a non-prac­tic­ing Jew­ish father, who was lat­er mur­dered at Auschwitz, and a Mon­tene­grin moth­er, who pro­tect­ed her chil­dren with time­ly bap­tisms, Kiš grew up under­stand­ing that hav­ing Jew­ish blood­lines meant being the Oth­er. Although he nev­er claimed any reli­gion for him­self, his feel­ings for his absent father and his qua­si-Tal­mu­dic lit­er­ary pro­cliv­i­ties became place-mark­ers for his spir­i­tu­al incli­na­tions. Com­ing of age in post-World War II Yugoslavia, Kiš’s sto­ries explore, albeit alle­gor­i­cal­ly, both Nazi and Stal­in­ist death machines. To tell Kiš’s sto­ry, Thomp­son takes a brief auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal state­ment that Kiš him­self wrote in 1983, and breaks out the sig­nif­i­cance of each detail that Kiš select­ed. This life nar­ra­tive is inter­cut with sec­tions explor­ing Kiš’s lit­er­ary works, so read­ers come away with a sense of both Kiš’s life and his writ­ing. Any­one inter­est­ed in mod­ern East­ern Euro­pean lit­er­a­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly the role of Jew­ish writ­ers, will find this biog­ra­phy impor­tant read­ing. Bib­li­og­ra­phy, index, map, notes, photographs.

Bet­ti­na Berch, author of the recent biog­ra­phy, From Hes­ter Street to Hol­ly­wood: The Life and Work of Anzia Yezier­s­ka, teach­es part-time at the Bor­ough of Man­hat­tan Com­mu­ni­ty College.

Discussion Questions