The University of Wisconsin Press
Fiction / Jewish Studies / African Studies
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Nowhere
in Africa “Based on Zweig’s personal experience
as a German Jewish refugee child in Kenya during World War II,
this novel inspired the 2002 Oscar Award winner for best foreign
film. . . . The ironic mix of anger and sorrow is unforgettable.” Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family who flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife, Jettel, and their five-year-old daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Regina immediately embraces the country—learning the local language and finding a friend in Owuor, the farm’s cook. As the war rages on the other side of the world, the family's relationships with their strange environment become increasingly complicated, as Jettel grows more self-assured but Walter is haunted by the life in Germany they left behind.
Please see this obituary published in the New York Times. Click here to visit the website for the 2002 Academy Award–winning film based on this book. Praise: “By 1938, the Nazi terror had flung
German Jews far and wide, in an ad hoc diaspora reaching from
Argentina to Shanghai. One less-known place of refuge was Kenya,
where middle-class Jewish families struggled to adapt to life
in a rural outpost of the British Empire. Nowhere in Africa,
which inspired the excellent film of the same name, is Stefanie
Zweig’s frankly autobiographical novel about this bewildered,
homesick group of refugees.” “A remarkable Holocaust memoir. . . . The story of flight, upheaval, adjustment, disruption, and
turmoil is impressive testimony to the strength of the human
spirit and is well worth reading.” Of Related Interest: Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.) |
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Stefanie
Zweig (1932–2014) was born in Germany in Upper
Silesia in 1932. In 1938 she and her parents fled to Kenya, but
returned to Germany in 1947. A journalist and author, she has
written many award-winning books for children and adults. Her
autobiographical novels Nirgendwo in Afrika and Irgendwo
in Deutschland have been translated into many languages.
The University of Wisconsin Press also publishes the translation
of Irgendwo in Deutschland, 
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