Unterzakhn
Click to look inside
World of Books
The feel-good place to buy books
Unterzakhn by Leela Corman
A mesmerizing, heartbreaking graphic novel of immigrant life on New York's Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century, as seen through the eyes of twin sisters whose lives take radically and tragically different paths."A haunting and often heartbreaking look at Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century and also a story about women, power, and bodies." -Austin American-Statesman
For six-year-old Esther and Fanya, the teeming streets of New York's Lower East Side circa 1910 are both a fascinating playground and a place where life's lessons are learned quickly and often cruelly. In drawings that capture both the tumult and the telling details of that street life, Unterzakhn (Yiddish for "Underthings") tells the story of these sisters- as wide-eyed little girls absorbing the sights and sounds of a neighborhood of struggling immigrants; as teenagers taking their own tentative steps into the wider world (Esther working for a woman who runs both a burlesque theater and a whorehouse, Fanya for an obstetrician who also performs illegal abortions); and, finally, as adults battling for their own piece of the "golden land," where the difference between just barely surviving and triumphantly succeeding involves, for each of them, painful decisions that will have unavoidably tragic repercussions.
Leela Corman is an illustrator, cartoonist, and Middle Eastern dancer who lives with her husband Tom Hart and their daughter Molly Rose in Gainesville, Florida. Flimflam, Queen's Day (Alternative Books), Subway Series (Alternative Books), and Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon) are a few of her works.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780805242591 |
| ISBN 10 | 0805242597 |
| Title | Unterzakhn |
| Author | Leela Corman |
| Series | Pantheon Graphic Library |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Schocken Books |
| Year published | 2012-04-03 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Los Angeles Times Book Prizes 2012 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |