The Girl With The Leica

One of my favorite books is ‘The Girl With The Leica’, by Helena Janeczek.

It talks about the story of Gerda Pohorylle, who later changed her name to Gerda Taro, seen from the perspective of three of her closest friends. Gerda was an independent and adventurous woman, who loved photography and journalism, as the title suggests (the Leica is a camera). The book is divided into three parts, and each gathers a subset of Gerda’s story narrated from the point of view of one of her three friends.

I really liked this book, and one of the things that I appreciated the most is that the author is able to put herself into three different people’s shoes. My favorite of the three was the first to speak, because he was the one whose character is similar to mine. Also, I like how the author succeeds in pervading the whole narration with a sort of melancholy through a lot of flashbacks and scenes from the characters’ memory. I don’t even know how to properly define that feeling you get, but at least I can say that it’s as if you were intensely looking at something you can’t have and sighed.

To sum up, I recommend this novel to everyone, as it’s one of the greatest masterpieces I’ve ever read.

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