LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
October 2017 Debut of the Month
This ambitious and powerfully moving debut tells the true story of one of the lesser-known tragedies of WWII, when Jewish passengers aboard a transatlantic liner expecting to be given refuge in Cuba were refused entry.
Hannah Rosenthal lived an enviable life in Berlin until the Nazis took hold, but a ray of light comes when her family are successful in their scramble to secure tickets and visas to board the St Louis liner. The sense of the passengers’ initial hopeful elation – the brilliant descriptions of lavish balls and fine dining – rapidly plummets when news filters through that that the governments of Cuba, America, and Canada are planning to deny them entry. After days anchored off-shore, a mere handful of passengers are permitted to step onto Cuban soil. The few who are allowed to remain will be all but alone in a strange land, separated from their loved ones, in the knowledge that they’ll most likely return to meet their deaths. Slip forward to New York seven decades later and Hannah’s great niece, twelve-year-old Anna Rosen, receives a parcel that will lead her to Havana to learn heart-wrenching truths about her family’s past. A poignant story that needed to be told, told with much heart and humanity. ~ Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen
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The German Girl Synopsis
The German Girl sweeps from Berlin at the brink of WWII to Cuba on the cusp of revolution, to New York in the wake of September 11th, before reaching its deeply moving conclusion in the tumult of present-day Havana. Based on a true story, this wonderful novel gives voice to the joys and sorrows of generations of exiles, forever seeking a place called home. Before everything changed, Hannah Rosenthallived a charmed life. But now the streets of Berlin are draped in swastikas and Hannah is no longer welcome in the places she once considered home. A glimmer of hope appears in the shape of the St Louis, a transatlantic liner that promises Jews safe passage to Cuba. The Rosenthals sell everything to fund visas and tickets. At first the liner feels like luxury, but as they travel the circumstances of war change, and it soon becomes their prison. Seven decades later in New York, on her twelfth birthday Anna Rosen receives a package from Hannah, the great-aunt she never met but who raised her deceased father. Anna and her mother immediately travel to Cuba to meet this elderly relative, and for the first time Hannah tells them the untold story of her voyage on the St Louis.
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9781471161599 |
Publication date: |
21st September 2017 |
Author: |
Armando Lucas Correa |
Publisher: |
Simon & Schuster Ltd |
Format: |
Paperback |
Pagination: |
343 pages |
Primary Genre |
Family Drama
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Other Genres: |
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Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Armando Lucas Correa Press Reviews
`The German Girl tells a horrific story in profoundly human terms, and one ends up totally gripped and absorbed in the history' Julia Neuberger, author of On Being Jewish
`Fascinating ... a brilliant entree into the terrors, ardours, endeavours, hopeless valour and souls of those who have been written off ... Now, in a new age of people in peril and adrift on the world's seas, this magnificent novel - and the unexpected and intricate tragedies of its powerfully imagined characters - bespeaks this eternal injustice' Thomas Keneally, bestselling author of Schindler's List
Author
About Armando Lucas Correa
Armando Lucas Correa is an award-winning journalist, author, and the editor-in-chief for People en Espanol, the top-selling Hispanic magazine in the United States. Correa is the recipient of various journalistic awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications and the Society of Professional Journalism. The German Girl is his first novel. Please visit ArmandoLucasCorrea.com.
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