Daniel Stein, Interpreter

Ludmila Ulitskaya’s novel is based on the true story of Oswald Rufeisen, a Polish Jew who saved hundreds of fellow Jews during World War II by posing as a German. After the war, he converted to Catholicism, became a Carmelite monk, and moved to Israel, where he founded a community of Jewish Christians. In the novel, the protagonist, Daniel Stein, acts as an interpreter not only in the linguistic sense, but also as a mediator between different cultures, religions, and people.