Review by Jonathan Taylor of "Walter Benjamin's Ark" by John Schad

 

“The Angel of History,” philosopher Walter Benjamin claims, is witness not to a “chain of events” but rather “one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage … in front of his feet.” No doubt this “pile of debris ... [which] grows skyward” consists mainly of human wreckage, the dead; but, as John Schad’s weird and hallucinatory new book, Walter Benjamin’s Ark, demonstrates, it also includes language, texts, the very ability of human beings to communicate. The catastrophe that is mid-twentieth-century history, in particular, reduced texts to a “huge-and-disorderly-heap-of-unsorted BOOKS, a kind of rubble,” such that “words had been muddled,” often in disastrous ways. 

Walter Benjamin’s Ark brilliantly picks its way through that rubble, trying to salvage something from the cataclysm. It pieces together an upcycled collage of historical fragments, philosophical and literary texts, impossible conversations, in order to tell the imagined story of Walter Benjamin’s son, Stefan, and his journey as a deportee from England during the Second World War. In 1940, Stefan was forced onto the HMT Dunera and deported, ultimately, to Australia – along with 2000 other “enemy aliens,” some of whom were devoted Nazis, but the majority of whom were Jewish refugees.

Herein lies the first sign of the disintegration of language: the disastrous collapse of the words “German,” “Nazi,” “enemy,” “alien,” “immigrant” and “Jew” into one another. Many other instances of linguistic collapse and miscommunication follow: a Jewish author’s unfinished novel is discovered by the British soldiers on board, and thrown into the Mersey; the letters between Stefan and his mother are lost; Stefan loses touch with his father, Walter; a manuscript Walter claims to have in his suitcase (“a manuscript more valuable than I am,” he says) disappears on his death; his final letter to his son is mysteriously destroyed; a Jewish poet, Gertrud Kolmar, is silenced – initially by being forced to work in a German munitions factory, and subsequently by deportation to Auschwitz. 

The deportation of the Jews, whether to Auschwitz or to Australia, is itself facilitated by failed communication. As Schad points out, on 8 August 1942, the World Jewish Congress sent a telegram from Geneva to New York warning about the Final Solution. “This telegram,” Schad notes, “would, initially, be dismissed as a falsehood.” As Schad suggests, miscommunication and misreading can have deadly consequences: excommunication all too easily slips into extermination. 

There is still hope, though, according to Schad: “in all its desperation,” Stefan’s situation, is “not devoid of hope.” And Schad’s quasi-biography itself represents an act of hope, in its piecing together of a new kind of language, its revelling in Joycean-Woolfian streams of consciousness, its staging of impossible dialogues,  its textual and generic contortions, its bizarre juxtapositions of slapstick with horror. After the war, Stefan became an antiquarian bookseller; and towards the end of Walter Benjamin’s Ark, he is seen straightening the books with “the gentlest touch,” as if rescuing them from the rubble, “lest they topple, fall, and crash” once more. Texts, language, communication persist, just about, and Stefan is doing his bit to restore them, saving them from the wreckage of war. 

About the reviewer
Jonathan Taylor’s most recent books are A Physical Education (Goldsmiths, 2025) and Scablands and Other Stories (Salt, 2023). He directs the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. 

You can read more about Walter Benjamin's Ark by John Schad on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review by F. Bamforth of "The Valley of Lost Secrets" by Lesley Parr

In this book, the main character Jimmy is sent away from his home in London to rural Wales along with his little brother Ronnie and his classmates. Jimmy struggles to settle down with his new foster family and adapt to his new life outside of London. Whilst in Wales, he makes a discovery which helps to change how he feels about his new home. 

This is a fantastic book, telling the story of an evacuee missing his home. It is an excellent read for anyone wanting an adventure story with a good ending. 

About the reviewer
F. Bamforth is 15. She loves books and building lego sets. 

Review by Simon Elson of "The Separation" by Christopher Priest

My favourite novel genre is sci-fi (preferably earth-based and near-future). I’ve read most of Jules Verne, a lot of H. G. Wells and pretty much all John Wyndham, although recently I’ve been reading World War Two fiction – Ben Elton and Jack Higgins. The other day on a recommended books list a title I’d not heard of popped up - The Separation by Christopher Priest (published 2001) that straddled both genres. It’s already making ‘classic sci-fi’ lists after just a couple of decades. 

Its subject matter of Nazi Germany alternative history has been done a lot: Fatherland by Robert Harris, The Man in The High Castle by Phillip K Dick, SS-GB by Len Deighton, 48 by James Herbert to name just a few of them.  Because of this I nearly passed on it. I’m glad I didn’t. It was different to all the books I mentioned; it was a novel with a real ‘Oh!’ moment at the end and then a sleepless night trying to make sense of the whole book.

I hope my last comment and the sci-fi label won’t put you off. It’s not a Hitler-wins-war scenario where England lives in fear. It starts in the present day and tells its narrative through several people’s first-person memories and historical documents.

The style of it, rather than being like alternative history, was more like normal historical fiction. it reminded me a little of Robert Harris’s book Munich rather than his Fatherland. I’d also say in places there was also a touch of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five without (spoiler alert for people who haven’t read S-H-5) the aliens.     

There were plot twists and turns all the way right up to the last full stop. If I’d been reading a physical copy of the book, I’d have been aware of arriving at the last page as I would have run out of paper to turn but reading an electronic copy it was less obvious. I tried to read the next page to find notes about the author. ‘WHAT…’ was my thought, so I turned back and re-read the last couple of pages, savouring them more the second time, then finally understanding the end (I think) after an hour or so of not sleeping, even though it was late. 

If when I’ve finished a book, I think ‘Oh no, I’ll never read that book again for the first time’ then that’s how I judge how good it was. This was one of those books.

  

About the reviewer
Simon Elson is a Freelance Features Writer. His articles  have appeared in numerous national magazines including Best of British, Derbyshire Life and Writing Magazine. He also writes for the popular cycling website Veloballs.com and has been a guest blogger on The Huffington Post.

Review by Sara Read of "The Prisoner's Wife" by Maggie Brookes

If this fascinating story was not based on a true account given to the author by a survivor of a Second World War workcamp, it would be scarcely believable. The tale is that of the intelligent and resourceful Izabela, a twenty-year-old Czech woman, who falls for an English prisoner and arranges, at great risk, a clandestine marriage for them. Instead of honeymoon, the couple barely have time to consummate their match before heading off on the run from the Nazis. 

Before leaving her mother’s farm, Lizzy disguises herself as a boy soldier, cropping her hair and taking some of her brother’s clothes. This decision ultimately saves her life, for when she is arrested with husband Bill, the Nazis accept without question that Izzy is a young soldier named Algernon Cousins, who is now mute through shellshock. Brookes ably conveys the terror that Izzy feels at every moment, expecting her secret to be uncovered at the mandatory delousing and showers, or when her period arrives. The consequence of this would be certain death. Yet, instead of being unmasked, the story shows how the men of Izzy and Bill’s hut rally round to protect her, forming a shield while she washes out her bloodied rags, and reminding her to feign shaving when the guards are around.  

One of the reasons the story is so compelling is the sophisticated narrative techniques Brookes employs. Izzy’s story is told through personal narration, which encourages the reader to invest in her character, inviting our sympathy. The chapters in which Izzy speaks are alternated with third person narration of the story from the point of view of husband Bill, or from the external narrator’s perspective. The way Izzy copes with her forced silence, her lice-infestations and extreme malnourishment, the latter leading to amenorrhoea within a couple of months, and yet somehow holds her own with the men she is incarcerated alongside is one of hope. Maggie Brookes’ meticulously researched narrative offers a real and vivid insight into life in a prisoner of war workcamp, where death is an almost mundane fact of life. What it reveals is the power of having a reason to go on, to find the strength to persevere when the odds are stacked so very highly against you.  

About the reviewer
Sara Read's debut novel, a work of historical fiction called The Gossips' Choice was published in 2020. She is a lecturer in English at Loughborough University, and her personal website is sararead.co.uk or tweet her @saralread.