Exercise Day 9

The Excerpt: “The following morning Bida went carousing. He smashed Saint Valentine’s shrine in the church and tried to play the organ. He was wearing a jacket that had been cut from a blue carpet and had an embroidered lily on its back, and he had combed his sweat-drenched forelock over his gouged-out eye.” — …

Exercise Day 8

The Excerpt: “This happened not too long ago. A British flag was hoisted above the Paris. The Paris was the Russian steamer Juliet, abducted by the Whites in 1919. Juliet sailed the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmara for four years, and then joined the Anatolian Line. Last December, she sailed from Constantinople to Zunguldak …

Exercise Day 7

The Excerpt: The face of an old gypsy woman looks out from inside a covered wagon facing the campfire. The reflection of a new moon ripples in a puddle of rainwater in the forest near the camp. On the floor, mountains of worn-out village shoes need mending. A dim oil lamp lights the cobbler’s hovel. …

Exercise Day 6

The Excerpt: I gave the old man some money and went out into the street. Gedali and I parted, and I went back to the railroad station. There at the station, on the propaganda train of the First Cavalry, I was greeted by the sparkle of hundreds of lights, the enchanted glitter of the radio …

Exercise Day 5

The Passage: “I could!” Mendel shouted, and banged his fist against his head. “I could, Benchik!” he yelled with all his might, staggering like an epileptic. “This courtyard around me, in which I have served a sentence for the first half my life. This courtyard has seen me be the father of my children, the …