A moving and often heartbreaking glimpse into how the suffering of those imprisoned in the Nazi death camps didn't end with their liberation
This moving and profoundly truthful story is told in the form of diary, kept by Angélika, the sister-in-law and friend of Klara, who, after her release from Auschwitz, wandered through war-ravaged Europe for two months before returning to Paris in August 1945.
Gradually, over a period of six weeks, Klara reveals, with cold anger and pitiless lucidity, the full horror of what she experienced in Auschwitz as she struggles to readapt to normal life.
Not since
Sophie’s Choice has a novelist succeeded in conveying – with truth, dignity, power and intelligence – the inhumanity of the death camps and the scars suffered by those who survived them.
Author Biography
Soazig Aaron was born in Rennes. She lived in Paris for several years, working in a bookshop, and now lives in Brittany. For this, her first novel (published in France as
Le non de Klara), she was awarded the Prix Emmanuel-Roblès and a Goncourt scholarship.
Reviews
A gift from heaven, a marvel of good writing, an unashamed and inventive approximation to the unbearable weight of memory. I have been waiting for some time for an account like
Refusal. I did not expect this quality and had not dared hope for it… Soon only fiction – that is the paradox, the mystery of literature – will be able to not merely bring to life, but also enrich this memory.,The most remarkable, awake-all-night-to-finish read
