This best selling book deserves all of its accolades. Superbly written, she captures the agony of what it must be like to live within an occupied country where you lose control of everything.
The history of the author and actual publication of the book is doubly worthy of note.
The author grew up in Russia. Her father was a very successful banker. With the October Revolution, the family migrated to Finland, Sweden, and ultimately, France where this young woman not only mastered another language, but excelled at the Sorbonne in literature. Even though being in France for a long time and converting to Catholicism, her Jewish roots resulted in her (and her husband) deportation to Auschwitz and death. Only because her adult children found the manuscript of this novel 60 years later do we benefit from the opportunity to read the agonizing dilemmas forced on those who are victims of war.
It is hard not to think of what our lives would be like if terrorists were able to seriously impair the fabric of our nation, e.g., nuclear or biological weapons. Living life would focus on very basic functions to ensure that we could survive.
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