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.

• AcknowledgementsPreface to the Second Edition by Moacyr Scliar, 1987Translator's PrefaceOn a Clear April MorningAfterwordNotesReferences

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"An oft-cited fact of history isthat the first Jewish community in colonial America consisted of Jews fromBrazil who were fleeing the long arm of the Inquisition. Beyond that, however,we hear very little of the place where they came from. That's why On a Clear April Morning, a novel written in Portuguese by the late Marcos Iolovitch, first published in Brazil in 1940 and only recently translated into English by Merrie Blocker, is such an exceptional book. … The book is considerably enriched by the foreword, preface and afterword that appear in Blocker'stranslation. Yet, even with the enriching efforts of Merrie Blocker and other contributors to the English edition, Marcos Iolovitch is truly and fully himself, a writer who wins us over completely."—Jonathan Kirsch, the JewishJournal