Abel and Cain

"Cain was Gregor von Rezzori's last book, a pendant to his monumental The Death of My Brother Abel, and in it he revisits the themes that he explored throughout his literary oeuvre: the origins of Nazism, the physical and moral ruin of Europe, the Americanization of the world, the ever-diminished role of beauty in daily life. But Cain, even as it looks back toward Rezzori's lifework, also represents an advance towards an ever more daringly improvisatory kind of writing. Cain has been described by Michael Kru?ger as not only the most modern of Rezzori's works, but as a great book, and an English translation of this work that rounds out not only the single biggest project of Rezzori's career, The Death of My Brother Abel, but his career as a whole, has long been overdue. David Dollenmayer, a past winner of the Goethe Institute's Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize, has taken on the job"--… (more)