Books
Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew: An Italian Story
Author: Vittorio Dan Segre
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Year: 2008 (1st ed. 1987)
Language: English
Other editions: Italian, Hebrew
Links: Publisher’s preview, The New York Times
“I was probably less than five years old when my father fired a shot at my head.” From this first line, Dan Vittorio Segre’s memoir moves from one startling turning point to the next. The child of aristocratic parents, Segre fled Fascist Italy and Mussolini’s anti-Semitic laws only to be thrust into the pioneering culture of Palestine, completely unprepared for the dangers of life in Israel during World War II. Beautifully narrated, Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew is an ironic, philosophical meditation on the historical reverberations of the twentieth century.
“Taut and illuminating . . . memorable . . . written with the humility of he who confesses himself and with the honesty of he who bore witness.”—Primo Levi
"A haunting tale, beautifully written and with a talent, reminiscent of Proust, to endow the past with a deep psychological meaning... A stunning exercise in self-awareness." (Amos Elon )
"A spellbinding biography of genuine literary value that reads like an adventure story. Those familiar with the bitter and depressing tone of the Jews'' misfortunes in the maelstrom of wars and holocausts will derive a unique freshness from the irony, humour and sensuality of Dan Segre." (A.B. Yehoshua )
5/24/09
An adolescent emigrant from Piedmont to British Palestine to escape racial laws, Vittorio Dan Segre witnessed and participated personally to the creation of the State of Israel. Cultural attaché, spokesman of the Israeli political figures at International summits, press official at the Israeli Embassy in Paris and Head of the radio broadcasts in Africa, journalist for various newspapers and university professor, Segre, within the world’s political scene, has always had “low profile” roles, which enabled him to be a detached, involved and ironic observer of the big events and of the great figures of the second half of the 20th century. In his autobiography Il bottone di Molotov, his second book, Segre depicts with soft and crafty strokes a gallery of politicians and intellectuals, protagonists in turning points in history including Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Mauriac, Molotov, Gromyko, Kenyatta, Sadat, Nyerere and Nasser. In 1998 he created the Institute of Mediterranean Studies at the University of Italian Switzerland in Lugano.