The latest paperbacks reviewed.
After Such Knowledge. Eva Hoffman, Vintage, £7.99
Eva Hoffman's parents, who spent much of the second World War hiding from the Nazis in an attic in the Polish-Ukrainian town of Zalosce, were, as Jews, in later years categorised as "survivors of the Holocaust". This was not an immediate category, for they first considered what they had been through to have been just "the war". Gradually, however, this war's specific meaning for the Jewish people began to impose itself, the feelings of loss - and even shame - eventually making up an immense traumatic burden felt not only by survivors but also by their children. Hoffman's analysis of the forms taken by the Holocaust's long emotional and psychological legacy does not make for easy reading. Those who enjoyed her memoir, Lost in Translation, or Shtetl, her study of the Polish Jewish village, will find this much tougher going, but equally honest and intelligent. - Enda O'Doherty
A Hero's Daughter. Andrei Makine, translated by Geoffrey Strachan, Sceptre, £7.99
Having been rescued from certain death on the battlefield, a soldier vows to marry the nurse who saved him - and does, on his return as a hero from the front. They have a child, the daughter of the title. First published in French in 1990, this debut by the now internationally established Siberian writer is not quite as elegiac or as lyrical as his subsequent work, yet his major themes, the brutal displacement of war and the multiple shifts that determine a life are already evident in a narrative of blunt eloquence. As the years pass, the "hero" becomes the victim of his own myths and pawns his medals for vodka. Meanwhile, his daughter, who thinks she is a translator, is merely an amateur call girl spying on foreign diplomats. Makine's realistic study of the collapse of idealism in a changing Russia is sad, human and very convincing. - Eileen Battersby
In the Colonie. Michael Rosen, Penguin, £7.99
Like its predecessors, Carrying the Elephant and This is Not my Nose, In the Colonie is a series of quirky prose poems. In the first two volumes of this autobiographical trilogy Michael Rosen wrote about the undiagnosed illness (an underactive thyroid) which debilitated him for a decade, and the sudden death (from meningitis) of his 18-year-old son. Here he focuses on his own teenage years, portraying himself as a gawky youth with a fondness for political activism - the legacy of his left-wing Jewish upbringing. Rosen is best known as a children's poet, and his deadpan tone and superb comic timing give these snapshots-in-words a deceptively brilliant surface sheen. Beneath the surface, however, lie the deep, dark pools of family life. Poignant without ever being sentimental, this must be one of the most startlingly original memoirs of recent decades - as well as one of the easiest to read. - Arminta Wallace
A Doctor's War. Aidan McCarthy, The Collins Press, €12.95
The late Aidan McCarthy was born in Berehaven, West Cork, educated at Clongowes Wood College, became a doctor and on the toss of a coin decided to join the RAF - the second World War had just begun. In this memoir, first published in 1979, his life meanders along without any great action - apart from his surviving Dunkirk - until he is taken prisoner by the Japanese. Thereafter the name of the game is survival. Each prison was a living hellhole, diseases were rampant and frequently fatal, no medicines or instruments were available, and prisoners were beaten regularly for any perceived slight. In his last prison he is literally saved by the dropping of the atomic bomb. The book is written in a matter-of-fact way without self-pity or self-praise and almost defies belief. What a pity it took so long to republish what is an engrossing and occasionally uplifting read . - Owen Dawson
Prince of Europe. Philip Mansel, Phoenix, £9.99
The prince of the title is Charles Joseph de Ligne (1735-1814) and his life story is told here in a lively way. Born in the Austrian Netherlands, he was very much a citizen of Europe . "I like my condition of being everywhere a foreigner: French in Austria , Austrian in France, both in Russia ," he wrote. His witticisms contribute to the pleasure of the book. He was a writer, general, garden designer and brilliant conversationalist. Servants, peasants, countesses all succumbed to his charms. He had access to the European rulers of the day and was on close terms with Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great and Frederick the Great, among others. He was an acute observer who believed personalities and emotions influenced events much more than impersonal forces like nationalism or religion, and was good to the humble and refreshingly free of prejudice. - Brian Maye
The Friends of Rathlin Island Stewart Dalby. Polperro Press, £9.95
Stewart Dalby, who worked in Ireland as a correspondent for the Financial Times in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has written quite an interesting thriller set in Northern Ireland in the near future. It has a bewildering cast of characters and goes into too much explication, but it makes up for that with an original and innovative storyline. The protagonist is Jackie Wilson, an anthropologist and a member of the Protestant ascendancy, who becomes involved in high-level chicanery because of a document that comes into his possession. Among other things, it appears to suggest a military coup is being planned by loyalists. The plot twists around and around like a snake eating itself, until a final twist brings everything to a satisfactory conclusion. Quite a lot of the settings will be familiar to Irish readers, and overall it's an entertaining read. - Vincent Banville.