Benjamin's Crossing

There is no such thing as history, you see. It`s a dream, perhaps even a dream of a dream . . . Walter Benjamin is dead. One of the most radiant minds of the twentieth century has been snatched away by death in a small town on the border between Spain and France. His thousand-page manuscript, carried the length of France during his flight from the Nazis, has vanished with him, never to be recovered. Jay Parini`s extraordinary novel traces Benjamin`s steps back through time, from the salons of Berlin to the winding roads of Catalonia. A tale of escape and pursuit, Benjamin`s Crossing dramatises one of the most moving peripheral episodes of the Holocaust; and above all, it is a love story.