East of Time

East of Time is a rendezvous of history and imagination, of realities and dreams, hopes and disenchantments. This extraordinary book, by turns stark and poetic, unfolds in a succession of short reminiscences that weave together into a shimmering tapestry depicting a lost world.


The setting is Lodz, Poland, in the years of the author’s childhood, when he witnessed the grand belief in a just new world overtaken by the cataclysmic events of the 1930s, imprisoned between the walls of ghettos, and finally silenced at Auschwitz. The book’s touchstone is the determination of an entire community to remain human, even at the last frontier of life.


“East of Time is the most ruthlessly honest book about the nature of humankind that I have ever read… Reading it has changed my life. How, after reading this book, can I ever again look into my heart and not weep?”

- Alex Miller


2007 Winner National Biography Award

2006 Winner of the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction