Most of Melita’s family perished in the Holocaust. She began to exhibit her work in 1991, when her family was once again destroyed by war, this time in ex-Yugoslavia. To survive reality, she created another world for herself where the story of her family could continue. Her paintings represent chapters of the story of her life. The painting that describes it best is ‘The Dybbuk” inspired by the play “Between the Two Worlds” by S. Ansky, which tells a story of fated love. Dybbuk, a wandering soul of a dead person who could enter and possess the body of a living person, was a popular figure in Jewish folklore in Central and Eastern Europe.
Melita Kraus was born in a non-observant Jewish family in Croatia in 1954. Most of her family perished in the Holocaust. While she was growing up, her family didn’t practice any Jewish rituals, nor was there any talk about them. Today, she uses her art as a way of honoring her family and all the victims of the Holocaust.
“Monkey’s Excuse” is a collection of short stories and parables by Nina Kossman, bilingual author of eight books of poetry and prose, compiler of the anthology “Gods and Mortals” (Oxford University Press), artist, and translator of Tsvetaeva’s poems into English.
This collection includes poems written in 2020-2023. (Russian edition)
“The Lingering Twilight” (“Сумерки”) is Marina Eskin’s fifth book of poems. (Russian edition)
Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.
