Comedy in a Minor Key" is very much about these issues: the endurance of life in a universe of death....The existential questions, forms the substance of this delicately balanced novel, a book of such profound and understated beauty that it almost seems to function as a parable...But in some sense, "Comedy in a Minor Key" is a testament to the power of consolation in an inconsolable situation, not to make things better but to allow us to see them as they are.

As you might expect from a book titled Comedy in a Minor Key, Hans Keilson’s novella – it’s 136 pages long – is a tonally eccentric work. It’s a mixture of grief, hope, fear and, if such a thing is possible, dry slapstick. ...I think Comedy in a Minor Key is one of the best short novels I’ve ever read...For me, the work’s chief accomplishment, aside from the quickness and subtlety of Keilson’s characterizations, is in its juxtaposition of the day-to-day (the banal) against the historically monstrous (the Second World War, the ruthless hunt for the Jews)..Comedy in a Minor Key is the work of a consummate artist, a wonderful writer. And the most striking thing about it may well be that it has taken so long for such exceptional work to be translated into English.

For busy, harried or distractible readers who have the time and energy only to skim the opening paragraph of a review, I’ll say this as quickly and clearly as possible: “The Death of the Adversary” and “Comedy in a Minor Key” are masterpieces, and Hans Keilson is a genius.