The Auschwitz Violin

The Violin of Auschwitz – Maria Àngels Anglada (trans. Martha Tennent)

            The Violin of Auschwitz is the story of Daniel, a Jewish lute maker from Poland who lives in a smaller concentration camp near Auschwitz during World War II.  Claiming to be a carpenter so as to seem more valuable to his captors his skill in the fashioning of stringed-instruments is discovered.  Daniel is put to work creating a specific violin for the man in charge of the camp.  Depending on the skill and quickness which he completes the task, Daniel’s life may hang in the balance.     

     

This appears to be the first work of Anglada’s translated from, I believe, Catalan to English and the copy I read was an uncorrected proof/advanced reader copy I received via the publisher/goodreads. From the literature I was given, this book has been fairly popular in its native language, and is only now being translated for the English-speaking audience.

The book seems more like a long-short story than anything else…and even then I would have preferred it to be longer and more filled out as a story than it was.  There is some focus on life at the camp, but the majority of the story followed Daniel’s construction of the violin.  For a story set in a concentration camp, it read less concerned with the camp and daily life than the race to complete the violin’s construction, which to me, felt like a weakness with the story.  

Like I said, this is my first ARC (in my ARC it was titled The Auschwitz Violin) and I was very excited to get it especially since the story sounded so interesting.  I really wanted to like this book, but I just kind of felt the story was a bit on the thin side in terms of descriptions and plot.  It’s not at all bad at all and I'm sure a lot of people would love it; however, it didn't resonate me and I think I just expected more.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Disclosure: I reviewed a copy of this in ARC format from the publisher via the First Reads program on Goodreads.