Written in exile and first published in 1959, Keilson focuses on a young Jewish man whose life becomes harangued by the presence of an unnamed “adversary”.

This force is at once political, psychological, and ambient, always horrifying. As persecution intensifies, the adversary moves from external pressure to internal condition, reshaping perception, behaviour, and the possibility of selfhood.

The narrative unfolds through childhood, dislocation, survival without offering a stable vantage point from which events can be ordered or resolved. You really feel how fear becomes continuous, how identity is reorganised under threat, and how the idea of an enemy can persist even in absence. Keilson, himself a psychiatrist, writes without catharsis or seeking moral clarity, instead documenting the long afterlife of violence within the mind.

FSG paperback edition (2010), translated by Iain Galbraith. Light shelf wear to covers with minor edge rubbing and faint creasing; small mark to lower front corner. Binding firm. Internally clean with no inscriptions or annotations. Very good condition.