Stranger in a Strange Land

“What a wonderful book this is: gripping, illuminating, beautifully constructed, and full of the communicative energy that comes from things long in gestation but written with fire and speed. It does so many things so well—the portrait of Scholem himself, the account of his work, the study of friendship that comes about through the sustained presence of Walter Benjamin, the evocations of Jerusalem and New York, above all the paralleling of Prochnik’s own story with Scholem’s. The extraordinary affinities between author and subject give the book an emotional intensity that complements its erudition and lends power to its final, audacious, inspiring claim on the reader’s capacity for hope.” —James Lasdun, author of The Fall Guy

“In his previous book, George Prochnik gave us a moving portrait of Stefan Zweig, the Viennese Jew who wrote tenderly of the 'world of yesterday'—the liberal Europe that collapsed with apocalyptic consequences in the 1930s—and killed himself in his Brazilian exile rather than die in its flames. In his powerful new book, Prochnik offers us a portrait of a Berlin Jew, fifteen years Zweig's junior, who made a very different choice: to renounce the dream of a liberal Europe and remake himself, and his people, in Palestine. Gerhard Scholem, who would become the famous scholar of the Kabbalah Gershom Scholem, upheld a cultural version of Zionism, and spoke of the need for Arab–Jewish coexistence; yet over time he accommodated himself  to the often brutal practices of the Jewish state, which turned Palestinians into strangers in their own land. In the late 1980s, as Palestinians in the Occupied Territories launched their first intifada, Prochnik, an American Jew from the suburbs, settled in Jerusalem with his family, inspired by Scholem's vision of a renewed Jewish cultural vitality, only to discover that this vision lay in ruins, no match for the muscular, expansionist Zionism with which it had made a marriage of convenience. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Prochnik writes of Scholem's dream—and of his own—with a rare and affecting combination of authority and vulnerability. This is a deeply felt work of critique and elegy, a probing examination of the subject of our time: the temptations, and the dangers, of belonging.” —Adam Shatz, contributing editor at the London Review of Books

Praise for The Impossible Exile:

"[A] superbly lyrical study...The Impossible Exile is not really--or not just--a biography of Zweig's final years. It is a case study of dislocation, of people who had not only lost a home but who were no longer able to define the meaning of home...Mr. Prochnik gives a very rich sense of what so many exiles experienced during the war...[his] words could not be more resonant." —André Aciman, The Wall Street Journal

"Poignant, insightful." —The New Yorker

"[A]n intriguing...meditation on Zweig's last years...an intellectual feast served as a series of canapes." —The New York Times Book Review

"Subtle, prodigiously researched and enduringly human throughout, The Impossible Exile is a portrait of a man and of his endless flight." —The Economist

"The Impossible Exile [is] a gripping, unusually subtle, poignant, and honest study. Prochnik attempts, on the basis of an uncompromising investigation, to clarify the motives that might have driven to suicide an author who still enjoyed a rare popularity." —Anka Muhlstein, New York Review of Books

• Push highlighting author backstory for national review and feature coverage in philosophy, biography, history, literary, and Jewish media; 
• National review and feature outreach to print long-lead, weekly, & daily publications (New York Times, LA Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal) and national and local radio outreach, including NPR shows, All Things Considered, Diane Rehm, Fresh Air; 
• Author appearances in NYC, DC, and other key markets by request

• Jewish Book Network promotions; 
• Library marketing, including ARC mailings and promotion at ALA; 
• Academic marketing to Jewish studies and history departments; 
• Goodreads giveaways and promotion; 
• DRCs available on Netgalley, Edelweiss; 
• Advertising in NYTBR, NYRB, Jewish Week, and online