Author Description

The author’s ancestors – 17 generations of Mahders – lived for five centuries in Harkau, a German village in Central Europe. Then came two 20th-century crises – one natural, one man-made – and it all exploded. This is the stuff of heritage, because culture is part glue, part dynamite. It holds a society together, until the dynamite that had been there all along blows it apart. In Banquet of the Ancestors, the author discovers the catastrophes that led to the ancestral village’s demise and his family’s dispersion. This book also tells a story of survival. It takes a fresh look at exile and identity, memory and amnesia. Historical truth is complemented by fantasy, in the form of fictional letters written by ancestors across centuries to each other. About the author: William Mahder, an American, was born and raised in Michigan. He has lived since 1977 in Paris, where he has primarily worked as a newspaper executive, notably for 20 years at the International Herald Tribune. In 1984, he was the general editor of a 450-page book published in English and French about the new wave of artistic creation unfurling in Paris at the time. As a composer, he has written and produced numerous works since 2009, including the music for 180 performances of five plays in Parisian theaters.