Travels to the Enu

Lind, Jakov. Travels to the Enu. New York, St. Martin's, 1982. Octavo. 125 pages. Original Hardcover with original dustjacket in protective collector's mylar. First edition of this brief satirical novel, Lind's first novel to be composed in English. A fine copy in dust jacket. This copy signed and inscribed by Lind to American novelist Harold Brodkey. Jakov Lind (born Heinz Jakov Landwirth, 10 February 1927 in Vienna - 16 February 2007 in London) was an Austrian-British writer of short stories and novels. After the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, Jews were immediately targeted by the new Nazi regime with anti-Semitic decrees designed to make their lives untenable and force them to leave Austria. The decrees included prohibition of using public transportation, of being employed, and of operating businesses. Jews were expelled from schools and universities, had their businesses Aryanized, a euphemism for their theft and confiscation by the Nazi regime, and were harassed with washing street signs of the previous regime in front of cheering and violent mobs. Eventually they were forced out of their apartments and prevented from leaving the country by themselves. While sitting in a cafe, Lind's father was picked up and arrested by the Gestapo, and shortly afterwards the family was ordered to evacuate their apartment within 24 hours. On the run, his mother managed to find a place for Lind and two sisters on a Kindertransport bound to the Netherlands. After Lind's father was somehow released, his parents struggled to leave Austria on a Danube barge bound for the Black Sea. There they boarded the ship Patria which was sunk with great loss of lives at Haifa Port in November 1940 by the Hagana in an effort to prevent the British from turning it back to Europe. As a child of 11 years in the Netherlands, Lind stayed initially in a children home in The Hague with his two sisters, but after a few months the sibl..