Cynthia Ozick‟s The Shawl is actually two stories,
The Shawl and Rosa, that were published in
The New Yorker in the 80s.
Ozick has been acknowledged as one of the
most accomplished and graceful literary stylists of
our time.
The first story is an extremely powerful account of the
brutality of Nazi concentration camps. Rosa, whom we
meet 30 years later, has been hiding her daughter Madga in
a shawl. Subsequent to her niece taking the shawl from the
child for her own comfort, Magda‟s search for her shawl
and the events that follow shape the remainder of this
book.
This novella of loss and survival will surely whet your appetite
for more Ozick. A few copies of her The Puttermesser
Papers have been ordered for our group, in addition
to The Shawl, and are available at the Circulation
desk. Mira Sennett will moderate. Refreshments will be
served, compliments of The Friends.
