Book description
The Snows of Yesteryear (1989) is Gregor von Rezzori's haunting
evocation of his childhood in Czernowitz, in present-day Ukraine.
Growing up after the First World War, Rezzori portrays a twilit world
suspended between the dying ways of an imperial past and the terrors of
the twentieth century. He recalls his volatile, boar-hunting father, his
earthy nursemaid, his fragile, aristocratic mother, his adored governess
and the tragic death of his beloved sister, in a luminous story of war,
unrest, eccentricity, folk tales, dark forests, night flights, and what
it is like to lose your home. One of those rare and lovely books . . .
in the precision and quality of Rezzori's prose, in his passion for the
perfect detail, and in his power to capture the reader's heart Gregor
von Rezzori (1914-1988) was born in the Austro-Hungarian province of
Bukovina (now part of Ukraine). At different points in his life he was a
citizen of the Habsburg Empire, Romania, the Soviet Union and Austria,
with a substantial interval of statelessness. He lived the latter part
of his life in Italy.
