Nir Baram story in the New yorker:
“At night I used to pad up and down the dark hallways in our house and stop outside my parents’ bedroom. Bending over to squint through the keyhole, I could see my mother’s slight body huddled on the right side of the bed underneath heavy covers, her head disappearing among them. Ever since her body was consigned to the disease, my mother had been melancholy. She squabbled with fate, demanded an explanation (I’ve never harmed a soul, she insisted), and quoted the Psalm we always recited at the annual memorial service for her mother, my grandmother Sarah: “Princes have persecuted me without a cause.”

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Interesting and thought-provoking review in Tagesspiegel by Ulrike Baureithel, which really focused in reading the novel. “Der israelische Schriftsteller Nir Baram lädt in seinem Roman “Weltschatten” zur Tour de Force durch den internationalen Finanzkapitalismus. Mit „Weltschatten“ hat der für seine Reportagen aus den besetzten Gebieten hochgelobte Autor ein monumentales Generationenbild geschaffen.”

The Economist with a great review on Good people:
“Not monsters or even cynics, he answers in a pacey, plot-heavy novel of dramatic events and big ideas, but gifted storytellers fuelled by ordinary motives of love, loyalty or ambition. Blessed or cursed by the “elasticity of the human soul”, they wield this suppleness of spirit as “the hidden hand that smoothed out every wrinkle in the flag of truth”

The writer and thinker like Vladimir Vertlib reviews Barams nonfiction book (Die Presse): “Barams ambivalence between sober analysis and emotional tone, between destructive criticism of the Israeli occupation and the concern for the Israelis, identified with his country, has marked the tone of the book, and gives him the voltage and the exemplary intensity of a good reports.”

“Zwischen diesen beiden Polen – zwischen Resignation und einer, scheinbar wider alle Vernunft beschworenen Hoffnung – bewegt sich das Buch. Der Autor selbst hat bei den zahlreichen Interviews, die er auf seinen Reisen gemacht hat, stets professionelle Distanz gewahrt und ließ seine liberalkritische Haltung in manchen Kommentaren dennoch durchscheinen. Diese Ambivalenz zwischen nüchterner Analyse und Emotionalität, zwischen vernichtender Kritik an der israelischen Besatzungspolitik und der Betroffenheit eines Israelis, der sich mit seinem Land identifiziert, prägt den Ton des Buches, verleiht ihm Spannung und jene exemplarische Eindringlichkeit, die guten Reportagen eigen ist.”

Nir Baram in “Meet the Author” in the Guardian: How do we work and live in a society that we consider unjust?

This book looks at the second world war from the perspective of two characters, Sasha and Thomas, who collaborate with Stalin and Hitler respectively. What interested you about that subject?
“In Israel, the second world war and the Holocaust are something you grow up with. At school, in the army, you sometimes feel that the Holocaust is shoved down your throat. But in literature you tend to come across the usual character types: either the bureaucrats such as Eichmann, or the highly perverse caricature of a Nazi. In contrast, I wanted to look at the role of brilliant and creative people, kind of “free spirits”, who happened to find themselves living under those regimes. Sasha, for example, may not agree with the objectives of the NKVD, but working for them provides her first chance to shine, and an opportunity to realise her talents.”

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World shadow recived great review in the German Der Freitag by lukas Latz
“Nir Baram nimmt beide Positionen ernst, zeigt ihre größten Stärken und kapitalen Schwächen und lässt offen, welche Haltung die bessere ist. Barams kraftvolle Darstellung profunder weltanschaulicher Konflikte könnte ihn auch literarisch zu einem Erben von Friedenspreisträger Amos Oz machen. Schon in dessen Werk wird sehr oft und sehr gut gestritten…”Nir Baram erzählt nicht chronologisch. Bis sich die Handlungsstränge seines Romans zu einem Bild zusammensetzen dauert es. Belohnt wird der Leser durch viele starke Bonmots und eine adäquate Erzählform.”

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Nir Baram gave a substantive interview to NRC, one of Netherlands leading newspaper

“Wie zijn oplossing utopisch noemt, slaat Baram fel om de oren. „En de tweestatenoplossing is dat niet? Hoeveel dichterbij zijn we in een halve eeuw bezetting gekomen? Ik vind dat er sprake is van intellectuele luiheid bij de linkse partijen in Israël, in Europa en in Amerika, met al hun zombieachtige gepraat over twee staten.”

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Nir baram nonfiction book gets the highest grade from De Standaard the book was reviewed by JORN DE COCK
“Barams boek is in de eerste plaats voor  Israëlische  lezers,  om  heneen  blik  te  gunnen  achter  die
Muur.  Dat  maakt  dat  Een  land zonder grenzen een stuk dieper ingaat op de crisis dan de gebruikelijke
inleidingen  op  het  conflict die alles nog eens uitleggen. Voor een  buitenlandse  lezer  komt  het
uitgebreide  notenapparaat  aanhet einde van het boek handig van pas.”

“Exactly the kind of intellectual novel that will get you through a summer spent chain smoking in Berlin cafes…”The story follows Berliner Thomas and Sasha of Leningrad as fate brings them together, just as it does their leaders, Hitler and Stalin. The sparks from this flint are determination, willpower, and, as the years go on, horror at what those virtues cost. In the end, though, Good People ultimately returns to Germany, although it is a place entirely changed from that which started the novel. The wrenching prose and plot has earned young Israeli author glowing comparisons to Dostoyevsky and Grossman. “How does a man in his early 30s know how to write like this?” Helen Elliott marveled.”

Chapter from “Good People” appears in the Guardian newspaper:
“Good People is a globe spanning, wide-canvassing novel that probes the depths of one of history’s darkest hours. With riveting narrative force, based on thorough historical research, this extraordinary novel spans World-War II Europe across time and space, boldly sketching an unflinching portrait of men and women and their times. In the extract presented below, our protagonist, Thomas Heiselberg, a Berliner, discovers a Jewish woman violently murdered in his home.”

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Review about World Shadow by Antje Deistler in Deutschlandfunk:

“In präziser, dichter Prosa widmet sich Nir Baram dem ausufernden Thema “Globalisierung”. Und dass daraus nicht die abgegriffen-sprichwörtliche schwere Kost, sondern ein auf höchst intelligente Weise unterhaltsamer Roman geworden ist, hat mit den glänzenden Fähigkeiten des 40-jährigen Schriftstellers zu tun. Stellen Sie sich also eher einen Goldbarren vor als einen Backstein.”

“Dabei will Baram weniger erklären als Fragen aufwerfen. Vieles bleibt absichtlich vage, dunkel und so undurchsichtig wie die vernetzte, globalisierte Welt selbst. Keiner blickt mehr durch, das große Ganze versteht niemand in diesem Buch, und dem Leser geht es konsequenterweise oft genauso. Dass man trotzdem, oder gerade deshalb, gefesselt bis zum niederschmetternden Ende weiterliest, ist der großen Kunst von Nir Baram zu verdanken.”

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“An addictive masterpiece”, Barbara Geschwinde Review in WDR Radio: “Er gibt lediglich Denkanstöße, eingebettet in eine spannende Romanhandlung, die eine kritische Selbstbetrachtung ohne Scham ermöglichen. „Weltschatten“ ist ein fesselndes Meisterwerk des israelischen Schriftstellers Nir Baram; von erschreckender Aktualität und kluger Weitsicht”

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This is maybe the most profound review about “The land beyond the mountains” (Im Land der Verzweiflung) so Far which was written by the prominent Palestinian Writer Ala Hlehel, one of the most important voices in the Palestinian society.

“Documentary literature is supposed to work against this type of writing: To the greatest degree possible, it should nullify the personal desires of the writer, and strive to construct an “objective” reality. Baram may not be 100 percent dedicated to this premise, but he certainly succeeds in providing a stage for that sort of reality, where it (the reality) features as the main protagonist, constructed from situations, interviews, monologues, inner thoughts and descriptions. He also dispenses with the pretense of being an objective journalist, and succeeds in maintaining his artistic style with a clear, characteristic technique. This is one of the book’s major achievements.”

To read the whole article click read more or go to
https://www.facebook.com/BaramNir/posts/1133120360066914

World Shadow was chosen as one of the recommended novels by the editorial team of the ZDF- “Das Literarische Quartett”
“Nir Baram gilt als große Entdeckung der hebräischen Literatur. Zu Recht… Spannend wie ein Polit-Thriller kritisiert dieser Roman die globale Gier nach Geld und ruft zum Gegenentwurf auf.”

“Baram narrative anatomises the malleability and fragility of truth, during lives of monstrous brutality and incoherence. Order is ephemeral; chaos is always just a falter away. Meaning and morality are quickly twisted. Unrelenting and undeniable, this is a savage, sometimes horrifyingly comic, autopsy on the warping of once-decent people.”

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Review in the New Zealand Listener: “The chilling irony of that thought is its self-reflexivity. In Baram’s fatalistic, labyrinthine Stalinistic universe, the game will always be up and there will be no escape for anyone.”

3 months after publication the critically acclaimed Non-fiction book by Nir Baram which dominated the best-sellers list in the past 10 weeks is again number 1 in the Best-sellers list.

With the publication of Good people in Australasia Nir Baram has been a guest in the Sydney Writers’ Festival and among other events participated in the panel “Madness and Malevolence: History Through Fiction” with Marlon James (winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize) and Álvaro Enrigue.

“Most alarming is how timely and universal the book’s themes are.”

Click read more to read the whole review