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Gregor von Rezzori

Gregor von Rezzori (1914-1998) was born in Czernowitz (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine), Bukovina, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He later described his childhood in a family of declining fortunes as one "spent among slightly mad and dislocated personalities in a period that also was mad and dislocated and filled with unrest." After studying at the University of Vienna, Rezzori moved to Bucharest and enlisted in the Romanian army. During World War II, he lived in Berlin, where he worked as a radio broadcaster and published his first novel. In West Germany after the war, he wrote for both radio and film and began publishing books at a rapid rate, including the four-volume Idiot's Guide to German Society and Ein Hermelin in Tschernopol (to be published by NYRB Classics as Ermine). From the late 1950s on, Rezzori had parts in several French and West German films, including one directed by his friend Louis Malle. In 1967, after spending years classified as a stateless person, Rezzori settled in a fifteenth-century farmhouse outside of Florence with his wife, gallery owner Beatrice Monti. There he produced some of his best-known works, among them Death of My Brother Abel, Memoirs of an Anti-Semite (published by NYRB Classics), and the memoir The Snows of Yesteryear: Portraits for an Autobiography.

The Snows of Yesteryear The author of Memoirs of an Anti-Semite tells his own story through portraits of the members of his childhood household. "An elegiac tribute to a receding past and a testament to the redemptive powers of memory–a family photography album, beautifully translated into words.—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Book Review Price: $12.76 (20% off)

Memoirs of an Anti-Semite Called "a rich, disquietingly good book" by The New York Times, the five interconnected stories in Memoirs of an Anti-Semite provide a panoramic yet intimate view of the deterioration of the European aristocracy in the years preceding World War II and the difficult decades that followed. Price: $12.76 (20% off)