Download or read book Ruta Tannenbaum written by Miljenko Jergovic and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-06 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The novel Ruta Tannenbaum is by prolific, award-winning Croatian author Miljenko Jergović. First published in 2006, the story illuminates life and society in Yugoslavia between the world wars. The title character was inspired by real-life figure Lea Deutsch, the now-forgotten Shirley Temple of Yugoslavia, who was murdered in the Holocaust. Using their shared Jewish heritage as a starting point, Jergovic constructs a fictional family history populated by historical figures with the precocious Ruta at the center. Stephen Dickey’s translation masterfully captures Jergovic ́’s colloquial yet deeply observed style, which animates the tangled and troubled history of persecution and war in Croatia.