Book Description

Rozalia Alone is the story of a young girl’s ability to navigate through different cultures and mentalities during shattering historic events. Born in Romania to a Christian Mother and a Jewish Father, she experiences the horrors and atrocities of Pogroms and World War II. Through the combination of sheer luck and the flexibility of a contortionist with an inordinate appetite for life, she escapes to Brazil. While she discovers the new continent, her sensuality is awakened by a man older than herself. Her search for the aunt who prepared her intellectual development in childhood and arranged for her escape, leads ultimately to a playful relationship with a husband whose universe is radically unlike her own. Permanently bruised, unable to forget the atrocities she has witnessed, Rozalia eventually finds motivation and success in her work. A spectator to greed, corruption, treachery and crime, she becomes involved in the quest for justice. She wins her fight, not in the courts of law, but by surviving life’s tribulations with irony and humor. “An engaging, disturbing, charming, elegant, teasing, lush, lean, and altogether desirable writing. I was moved, I was pleased, I was teased, I did laugh.” —Clinton Smullyan, Bibliophile “One has known Rosita Fanto as an artist. We knew her as a memoirist. And now we know her to be a genuine novelist. And, in fact, an epic one. I was not prepared for what turns out to be the sweep of her tale, from the thirties in Romania to Brazil and Europe, from rural and urban Romania to the jungles of Brazil and the heights of luxury in Rio, London, and the south of France over a span of decades. It could all make a fascinating movie or miniseries—and should. —Morris Beja, Author of James Joyce: A Literary Life, Film and Literature, and other books. Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University Book Review Fanto’s debut novel follows a Romanian girl’s journey from the terrors of World War II Europe to the beaches of Brazil. Rozalia, daughter of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, is born in Romania in the early ‘20s. She comes of age in that country’s capital, Bucharest, but suffers a string of family tragedies when her nation is engulfed by Hitler’s mania. Surviving loss and unimaginable grief, Rozalia eventually flees to Brazil where she meets an older man and marries. Haunted by her bloody past, Rozalia nonetheless finds solace in her business pursuits—and in a personal quest for justice. Fanto balances her novel’s disparate movements—first in wartime Europe, then in the wider world—with rare aplomb. She describes her tale’s most atrocious horrors—such as the Romanian pogroms and her heroine’s journey on a stuffed cattle car—from a mature distance, never succumbing to the twin lures of melodrama and exceeding pathos. The early parts of her project shed light on a corner of Axis-controlled Europe not frequently explored by modern artists. But more impressive is the way that her prose style matures with her protagonist. When Rozalia is young, Fanto writes in a pared-down version of English, settling into a child’s vocabulary that shows the world through a child’s eyes. But as Rozalia grows, Fanto’s prose grows too, becoming more complex and nuanced as Rozalia comes to understand her life in new ways. When Rozalia finally escapes Eastern Europe and travels to Brazil, Fanto’s writing glows with a subtle energy that occasionally leaps to flame. And as she begins travels that will take her to places unknown, Rozalia’s tale becomes a beautiful travelogue that delivers nothing less than the world. A touching, astute novel from a promising talent.—Kirkus Discoveries