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Philippe Smolarski is a historian, archaeologist, and expert in Asian art. He has lived in China, Russia and in parts of Central Asia, and is doctor honoris causa of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. When he was director of the Institut Européen d’Études Chinoises in Brussels, he organized several major exhibitions including the Treasures of the Tianjin Museum at the Cinquantenaire Museum in Brussels. He was born in Strasbourg and lives in Brussels.
His first book "Feivel le Chinois" , published by the Castor Astral in France has been already published in Germany by LIM Verlag " Fayvel der Chinese" , soon in Polish Language (MdM wydawnistwo) under the title "uciec od przeznaczenia" . "Fayvel's notebook" is the English version .
Reviewed by Raanan Geberer for Readers' Favorite
Fayvel’s Notebook: From China’s Ganglands to the Warsaw Ghetto and Beyond, by Philippe Smolarski, centers around a slippery but fascinating character who started out as a member of the Warsaw Jewish criminal underworld and eventually became the leader of an international drug smuggling ring headquartered in China. When World War II begins, he smuggles himself into the Warsaw Ghetto with false papers to try to save his relatives, accompanied by his trusty German-Jewish bodyguard Walter the Boxer and his Chinese mistress Meiling. When he finds out they've been killed, he must leave the ghetto. However, the Nazis are hot on his trail. This leads to a colorful chase through Germany, Switzerland, France and Spain. In Meiling’s temporary absence, Fayvel meets a young woman who’s everything he’s not – cultured, intellectual, from a wealthy family – and falls deeply in love.
Fayvel’s Notebook gives a fascinating, action-packed look into a world that no longer exists, that of the old-time European Jewish underworld. There were real-life Jewish adventurers who ended up in China – like Morris “Two-Gun” Cohen, mentioned in the book, who became a Chinese patriot in the struggle against the Japanese. Of course, not all the criminals Fayvel deals with are Jewish – wherever he goes, even in Nazi Germany, he knows big-time gangsters. Philippe Smolarski has definitely done his homework, as seen in his use of historical details such as the fact that “Volksdeutsche,” or Poles of German origin, enjoyed a privileged status in Nazi-occupied Poland. All in all, Fayvel’s Notebook is a fascinating, fast-paced historical thriller, one that should please fans of crime fiction and history buffs alike.
