On a Clear April Morning

Born in a small Ukrainian village, Marcos Iolovitch was raised in southern Brazil among poor Jewish farmers and peddlers.  He became a noted poet and essayist and practiced law. A fighter for social justice, he dedicated his autobiographical novel to “all those who suffer and dream of a better world.”Merrie Blocker is a former U.S. diplomat who served as Cultural Attaché in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the setting for On a Clear April Morning, as well as in Central Asia and Romania and throughout Latin America.

“[A] moving and heartbreaking immigrant account that began with a relatively abundant life in Zagradowka, a village in the Ukrainian province of Kherson. … I urge readers to discover for themselves this unassuming masterpiece.” — Irena Karshenbaum, Jewish Post & News“Marcos Iolovitch’s On a Clear April Morning is an autobiography—first published in Portuguese in 1940 with a second edition in 1987, and now introduced to English readers by Merrie Blocker. A series of short memories arranged in twenty-seven chapters of chronological order and without an overarching dramatic arc, the book becomes a chronicle rather than a novel—a chronicle of a specific time and a specific Jewish immigrant experience. Nevertheless, these are often delicately described, and the book is beautifully translated as Blocker manages to transmit the Portuguese into an English that flows naturally even through paragraph-length sentences, successfully keeping the translation as close as possible to the original phrasing without losing the musicality of Iolovitch’s writing.”—Eva Wissting, Asymptote

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsPreface to the Second Edition by Moacyr Scliar, 1987Translator’s PrefaceOn a Clear April MorningAfterwordNotesReferences