La vila perduda

What if a village lost in the forests of Poland had miraculously escaped the horrors of the 20th century? Starting from this brilliant premise, Max Gross has concocted a speculative fiction in the wake of the best Jewish humor, a cross between Woody Allen, Michael Chabon and Life is Beautiful for which he won the National Jewish Book Award. The inhabitants of Kreskol, a shtetl or Jewish village, have been happily isolated from the world for more than a hundred years: they are unaware of the Holocaust and the Cold War, and of modern inventions such as the automobile, the smartphone or sanitation. Until a marital dispute forces them to abruptly enter the 21st century. One morning, after a bitter divorce, the young Pesha Lindauer disappears without a trace. Alarmed, the rabbis task Yankel Lewinkopf, the village idiot, with venturing outside to alert the authorities. On his journey, Yankel discovers the beauty and the horror of modern life. Unable to believe his account, the Poles take him for a madman and commit him to a psychiatric facility. When it is finally proven that he is telling the truth, he will command the attention of all the media. The meeting between the two worlds will have dramatic (and often comical) consequences for the inhabitants of the shtetl, who must face the dark origins of their isolation and decide whether or not they want to jump on the bandwagon of history.