Description
Fiction. Jewish Studies. A devout, Polish Christian doctor, Mania, receives puzzling news from her mother Krystyna, just before she dies. The two are exceptionally close, as Mania has never known her father. However, in spite of their closeness, Krystyna has always refused to tell Mania about their family or the time they spent together when Mania was small during the war. Their story is mainly told in the present as Mania deals with her mother's aging, her death, and her final words, "Find them…make it right." She wants to fulfill her mother's last wishes, but has little idea of where to start. Never does she suspect that her search will take her across Poland, back in time and over the ocean. Spanning over sixty years, this story tells the lengths to which mothers will go in order to save their daughters and the secrets they will keep to protect them from pain. Set in the broader context of the fraught relationship of Poles and Jews during and after the Second World War, it depicts the circumstances that made some ordinary people behave heroically while others betrayed their friends and neighbours.
Author Bio
Renate Krakauer's career has included senior roles in education, and municipal and provincial governments. She has published award-winning short fiction in a number of literary journals,such as Parchment, The Storyteller, and Foliate Oak; essays in the The Globe and Mail, journals and two anthologies; a memoir But I Had a Happy Childhood; and two plays. ONLY BY BLOOD is her first novel. Renate lives in Toronto with her husband. She has three adult children, two stepsons, and six grandchildren.
Author City: TORONTO, ON CAN