‘A magnificent small book to read urgently’ – Libération

Once upon a time in an enormous forest there lived a poor woodcutter and his wife. Around them a war wages, and hunger is a constant companion. Yet every night, the woodcutter’s wife prays for a child.

On a train crossing the forest, a Jewish father holds his twin children. His wife no longer has enough milk to feed them. In hopes of saving both their lives, he wraps his daughter in a shawl and gently throws her from the train.

While foraging for food, the woodcutter’s wife finds a bundle, a baby girl wrapped in a shawl. She knows that this little girl will be pursued, but she cannot ignore this gift: she will accept the precious cargo, and raise her as her own. . .

Set against the horrors of the Holocaust and told in a fairytale style, Jean-Claude Grumberg’s The Most Precious of Cargoes is a deeply moving fable about family and redemption. A story that reminds us that humanity can be found in the most inhumane of places.

Translated from French by Frank Wynne.

Gustav grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem a distant echo. But Gustav’s father has mysteriously died, and his adored mother Emilie is strangely cold and indifferent to him. Gustav’s life is a lonely one until he meets Anton. An intense lifelong friendship develops but Anton fails to understand how deeply and irrevocably his life and Gustav’s are entwined until it is almost too late…

‘A perfect novel about life’s imperfection… Tremain is writing at the height of her inimitable powers…’ Kate Kellaway, Observer

‘Heartbreaking, unsentimental and beautifully written, and it reinforces my opinion that there are few writers out there with the dexterity or emotional intelligence to rival that of the great Rose Tremain.’ John Boyne, The Irish Times