'A lost classic of mysterious provenance, Frenkel's tale and prose is utterly compelling, at once painful and exquisite' -- Philippe Sands, author of East West Street
'Frenkel writes with a novelist's observing eye: her cool detachment in the heat of persecution and attempted flight brings both the bureaucratic and human cruelty of life under Nazi occupation into startling relief. Every dangerous detail, every helping hand is luminously present. This is a memoir that has the terrible precarity of lived experience. It's the real thing. I cried and still couldn't put it down' -- Lisa Appignanesi, author of Losing the Dead
'A bitter, beautiful and important book' --Robert Fisk
'Frenkel's book was a fortuitous find... an appealing style... a wild beauty to the prose... sharply specific... unbearably sad' --Financial Times
'Françoise Frenkel's memoir offers a reminder never to disdain jumble' --Jewish Chronicle
Stephanie Smee is a translator of French adult and children's books into English. Her other languages include German, Italian and Swedish.