The Vision of Emma Blau - by Ursula Hegi (Paperback)

About the Book

Now in paperback comes the bestselling companion novel to "Stones from the River". Hegi creates a fascinating picture of immigrants in America: their dreams and disappointments, the challenges of assimilation, the love that bonds generations, and the cultural wedges that drive them apart.

Book Synopsis

Ursula Hegi returns with a luminous epic of a bicultural family filled with passion and aspirations, tragedy, and redemption.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Stefan Blau, whom readers will remember from Stones from the River, flees Burgdorf, a small town in Germany, and comes to America in search of the vision he has dreamed of every night.

The novel closes nearly a century later with Stefan's granddaughter, Emma, and the legacy of his dream: the Wasserburg, a once-grand apartment house filled with the hidden truths of its inhabitants both past and present.

The Vision of Emma Blau illustrates a fascinating picture of immigrants in America, including their dreams and disappointments, the challenges of assimilation, the frailty of language and its transcendence, the love that bonds generations and the cultural wedges that drive them apart.

Review Quotes

Linton Weeks The Washington Post Book World Rife with life and death and magic realism in the tradition of Gabriel García Márquez.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Engrossing...a risky story of love and history and an invigorating, memorable story about the power of desire.

Anne Stephenson The Arizona Republic Hegi's characterization is superb, part of a story that is as well constructed as the Wasserburg itself.

Robert Clark The Washington Post Book World Always vividly imagined and deeply felt...Hegi reminds readers that history inhabits and, yes, haunts us, and must be somehow rendered its due.

About the Author

Ursula Hegi is the author of The Worst Thing I've Done, Sacred Time, Hotel of the Saints, The Vision of Emma Blau, Tearing the Silence, Salt Dancers, Stones from the River, Floating in My Mother's Palm, Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories, Intrusions, and Trudi & Pia. She teaches writing at Stonybrook's Southhampton Campus and she is the recipient of more than thirty grants and awards.