The stunning short story collection—available in English for the first time—that established Edith Bruck as a major figure in Italian literature. "[M]asterful . . . The stories are poignant and crafted with subtle humor, compassion, and unsparing observations." —Foreword Reviews This Darkness Will Never End, the first short story collection by the Hungarian-born author Edith Bruck, was published to acclaim in Italy in 1962. After World War II, Bruck, a Holocaust survivor, settled in Rome where she wrote her fable-like stories, recounting the lives of poor Jewish families in Europe before, during, and immediately following the war. In the title story, believed by some film scholars to have inspired the Oscar-winning movie Life Is Beautiful , a young girl shepherds her blind, sickly brother as they are deported. In “Matzoh Bread,” a child gets a painful glimpse of anti-Semitism when a friend tells her a legend about the unleavened bread Jews eat at Passover. In one of the more colorful stories, a hapless father whose business partners swindle him over a horse only tells the truth when he’s talking in his sleep. Beautifully translated from the Italian by Jeanne Bonner, these stories offer a glimpse into a bygone world. They testify to the resilience of survivors like Bruck, whom Italian critics initially compared to Anne Frank, deeming her the writer Anne would have become had she survived. " This Darkness Will Never End subtly draws us into the complex emotional world of growing up in wartime. These are finely wrought, meticulously translated stories about living through both everyday and extraordinary hardship—Bruck, unsparing and insightful, is a major Jewish voice." —Jamie Richards, winner of the National Translation Award in Prose, and translator of Adua by Igiaba Scego “The gifted translator Jeanne Bonner has done a great service by bringing us these extraordinary stories by the Hungarian writer Edith Bruck, a Holocaust survivor who lived in Rome after the war; she offers vivid and poignant stories about the experiences of Jewish families whose lives were overturned during the war. Bruck’s book is a splendid and vital addition to the body of Holocaust literature by women.” —Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Disturbances in the Field PRAISE for THIS DARKNESS WILL NEVER END: " This Darkness Will Never End does not directly depict the Holocaust. Instead, this collection of fable-like tales plunges us into the lives of poor, rural, Jewish families — mostly from the point of view of women and children — before, during, and after the war. We know their future, but they do not. This vanished world is vividly rendered and incredibly poignant, particularly because of what is inferred." —Jewish Book Council "Bruck’s prose is direct and spare, free of sentimentality, and Jeanne Bonner’s translation preserves this clarity . . . With this collection, written at the beginning of her illustrious career, Bruck delivers an elegy—for childhood, for parents lost too soon, and for a world that once existed." —Centro Primo Levi "[M]asterful . . . The stories are poignant and crafted with subtle humor, compassion, and unsparing observations." —Foreword Reviews “Edith Bruck’s spare, haunting, fable-like stories reveal the enduring echoes of history through narratives of survival, loss, and resilience. Bonner’s sensitive, masterful translation of this landmark collection preserves the poetic soul of Bruck’s prose, ensuring that this vital work will find its rightful place in world literature.” —Jenny McPhee, translator of Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg " This Darkness Will Never End subtly draws us into the complex emotional world of growing up in wartime. These are finely wrought, meticulously translated stories about living through both everyday and extraordinary hardship—Bruck, unsparing and insightful, is a major Jewish voice." —Jamie Richards, winner of the National Translation Award in Prose, and translator of Adua by Igiaba Scego “The gifted translator Jeanne Bonner has done a great service by bringing us these extraordinary stories by the Hungarian writer Edith Bruck, a Holocaust survivor who lived in Rome after the war; she offers vivid and poignant stories about the experiences of Jewish families whose lives were overturned during the war. Bruck’s book is a splendid and vital addition to the body of Holocaust literature by women.” —Lynne Sharon Schwartz, author of Disturbances in the Field "This Darkness Will Never End, the title of Jeanne Bonner’s expert English rendering of Edith Bruck’s first short story collection, could well stand for this Holocaust survivor’s entire body of writing. While her ordeal in the camps is never explicitly evoked in these stories, it hovers over them in the 'dark' hints of an Hungarian peasant culture steeped in anti-Semitism long before the deportations of 1944. Amidst these fictionalized first person narratives, many of them set