A Picaro in Hitler's Europe

About the Book

This memoir, whimsical and poignant, follows the author from early schooling in Turkey and, later, Germany, through graduation from Oxford. His Warsaw graduate studies were interrupted in 1939 by volunteer service in the Polish army; captured by Nazi troops, he escaped back to now-occupied Warsaw and joined the Polish Resistance until recruited by the American OSS in Istanbul. In 1949 his young family emigrated to the U.S. where he established himself as a Russian scholar, verse translator and linguist. The final chapters find him in Sicily, completing his translation of Goethe's Faust and writing on the delights and oddities of life in Taormina.

About the Author

The content of the book necessarily parallels closely the author's curriculum vitae. Its spirit is perhaps best expressed in one of his poems, translated from the great humorist, Wilhelm Busch: My life? There isn't much to tell, In still eternity forlorn I slumbered, all at ease and well, Till rendered visible and born. What followed? Down a knobbly track, A flimsy bundle on my back, I lightly marched through field and wood, Now on the crook, now on the straight; At last I settled on the grass To catch my breath. I scratched my pate, I scrutinized the neighborhood: I'd come full circle—yes, alas! Back to the place where I had stood, And far and wide in front of me There ranged, as then, eternity.