"Bukai's lyrical prose shines again in her newest work, T he World Between , [a] story that. evokes tensions between spouses, homelands and shifting times."-- Hadassah Magazine "Powerful sensory images. A brief beguiling plunge into a woman's consciousness."-- Kirkus Reviews "Zeeva Bukai's The World Between gives us the long life of an actress in the fading world of Yiddish theatre. From a wartime childhood in a Siberian camp, to a tempestuous marriage in post-war New York, to sorrow and decline in later Israel, an unforgettable character leads us through a page-turner of a story with history at its heart."-- Joan Silber, author of Improvement and Secrets of Happiness . "Bukai delivers as splendid an orchestration of life as one might usually anticipate from a much longer novel, so filled is it with notes of longing, melancholy, bitterness, resounding love, and fleeting joys.
The author has said that the devastating sense of loss after her mother's death inspired her to write a kind of homage, and it is hard to imagine mothers and daughters--or indeed any reader, not celebrating the result. And this is a consistently evocative work; the various eras the narrator revisits are vividly, lovingly curated, illuminated with a genuine sense of authenticity. The World Between is a shattering, heartfelt, and exuberant achievement."-- Jewish Book Council " The World Between is a beautiful rendition of life as art, and art as life, in the portrait of one woman's struggles through what has been called the Century of Wars, but should be called the century of suffering. 'Fiction is art,' John Cheever said, 'and Art is the triumph over chaos, no less.' This book is a triumph."-- Richard Bausch, author of Peace , and The Fate of Others: Stories. "Zeeva Bukai's stunning novel takes place nischt ahn, nischt aher, where memory and damage conjoin and there are no solutions.
Bukai's luminous prose heals even as it wounds, and I was utterly entranced by her wisdom and masterful approach to trauma. The World Between should be required reading for anyone seeking understanding of the Holocaust, survival, and the profound impact of both."-- Erika Krouse, author of Save Me, Stranger "The World Between is fragile. It's mysterious. It's wonderfully written. Zeeva Bukai has created characters who breathe with weighty, tragic experience."-- Max Gross, author of The Lost Shtetl "Original, compelling, emotionally engaging. Author Zeeva Bukai's character-and-narrative-driven storytelling style raises her novel to an impressive level of literary excellence.
"-- Midwest Book Review.