Born in 1932 near Czernowitz, Bukovina, which today lies between Ukraine and Romania. Appelfeld's mother was killed at the onset of World War II, and he and his father were sent to the Transnistria concentration camp. Managing to escape the camp at the age of nine, Appelfeld spent the next three years hiding in the forests of Ukraine, working for villagers in exchange for food. After the war ended, he moved first to Italy and then to Palestine when he was fourteen. Twenty years after they were separated, he reunited with his father in Israel and began a new life with a new language and name. Throughout his more than forty-year writing career, he wrote many novels about the experiences of Jews before, during, and after the Holocaust. He received numerous awards, including the Prix Médicis étranger, Nelly Sachs Preis, Premio Grinzane Cavour, Premio Boccaccio Internazionale, the 2012 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the 2016 Hemingway Prize. Appelfeld, who passed away in 2018, was a finalist for the 2013 International Man Booker Prize and also held the Commander de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.