Description

Lviv, Lwow, Lvov, Lemberg. Known by a variety of names, the City of Lions is now in western Ukraine. Situated in different countries during its history, it is a city located along the fault-lines of Europe’s history.

City of Lions presents two essays, written more than half a century apart – but united by one city.

Jozef Wittlin’s sensual and lyrical paean to his Lwow, written in exile, is a deep cry of love and pain for his city, where most people he knew have fled or been killed.

Philippe Sands’ finely honed exploration of what has been lost and what remains interweaves a lawyer’s love of evidence with the emotional heft of a descendant of Lviv.

With an illuminating preface by Eva Hoffman and stunning new photographs by Diana Matar, City of Lions is a powerful and melancholy evocation of central Europe in the twentieth century, with a special resonance for today’s troubled continent.

Publisher Review

"[Wittlin's essay My Lwow is] for many Poles the definitive evocation of one of their great lost cities. . . a loving, sensuous, but also gently ironic reconstruction. . . Sands's perspective is closer to that of the contemporary reader, who struggles with the juxtaposition between beauty, faded grandeur, and whimsical visions of a cosmopolitan past on the one hand, and savage mass murder on the other." -Los Angeles Review of Books "Congratulations to Pushkin Press for bringing lovely, haunted Lviv to a new audience." - Times Literary Supplement "A walk down memory lane, a meditation on time, politics and remembrance." - Dublin Review of Books "Wittlin takes us on a detailed tour of the city... well-illustrated." - East-West Review "Beautiful and disturbing songs in prose." - Kazimierz Wierzynski