By Kerryn Goldsworthy
PICK OF THE WEEK
Charlotte
Charlotte, by David Foenkinos, translated by Sam Taylor
David Foenkinos, translated by Sam Taylor
Canongate, $24.99
Charlotte Salomon was a German Jewish artist born in 1917 to a family in which depression ran deep and suicide was the rule rather than the exception. Murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 26 and five months pregnant, she is known for the extraordinary body of work she left behind, miraculously saved from the chaos of her life and times: a collection of over 700 paintings, produced as one huge autobiographical work entitled Life? – or Theatre? A Songplay, now apparently gathering dust in the basement of the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. David Foenkinos' plain telling of this tale is grounded in his own obsession with Salomon and her work, to which he refers only occasionally and briefly. The style of starting a new line for every sentence is initially irritating but quickly grows on the reader, and the drama and tragedy of Salomon's life makes for distressing but compelling reading.