by Louis Begley
8. If the world of Wartime Lies is one where everyone bears a burden of guilt, what guilt do Maciek, Tania, Grandfather, and Reinhard carry?
9. When Maciek must attend catechism classes, something in his perception shifts. How does Maciek feel about this experience?
10. How does Wartime Lies compare to other novels about the Holocaust you may have read?
About the Author
LOUIS BEGLEY is the author of five novels. Wartime Lies, which was written when he was in his mid-fifties, was followed by The Man Who Was Late, As Max Saw it, and About Schmidt, and most recently, Shipwreck.
Begley has another life, that of a lawyer. He is a senior partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, one of America’s most prestigious firms, and is the head of its international practice.
Wartime Lies was the winner of the PEN Hemingway Award, The Irish Times-Aer Lingus International Prize, and the Prix Medicis Etranger, France’s most coveted prize for fiction in translation. It was a National Book Award, Los Angeles Times Book Award, and National Book Critics’ Circle Award finalist. About Schmidt was likewise a National Book Critics’ Circle Award and Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist. Begley has received the American Academy of Letters prize for literature and numerous other awards.
Begley was born in Stryj, a town that was Polish and is now part of the Ukraine, in 1933. Being Jewish, he survived the German occupation by pretending, with the help of false identification papers, to be a Catholic Pole. Begley and his parents left Poland in 1946 and settled in New York in 1947. Begley graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and after having served in the U.S. Army, from Harvard Law School in 1959.
Since 1974, Begley has been married to Anka Muhlstein, a prize-winning French author of biographies and other historical works. The combined family includes five grown children. His are a painter and sculptor, a book critic, and an art historian. Hers are a foreign relations specialist and a television journalist.
Wartime Lies is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1991 by Louis Begley. Afterword Copyright © 2004 by Louis Begley. Reader’s Guide Copyright © 2004 by Louis Begley and The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1991.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Ballantine Reader’s Circle and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Control Number: 97-90673
eISBN: 978-0-307-76193-4
This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House, Inc.
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Afterword
A Reader’s Guide
About the Author
Copyright
