Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found

Es, Bart Van

£9.99

The story of a man’s search for the astonishing truth about his family’s past. The last time Lien saw her parents was in the Hague when she was collected at the door by a stranger and taken to a city far away to be hidden from the Nazis. She was raised by her foster family as one of their own, but a falling out well after the war meant they were no longer in touch. What was her side of the story, Bart van Es – a grandson of the couple who looked after Lien – wondered? What really happened during the war, and after? So began an investigation that would consume and transform both Bart van Es’s life and Lien’s. Lien was now in her 80s and living in Amsterdam. Reluctantly, she agreed to meet him, and eventually they struck up a remarkable friendship.

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Publish Date: 10/01/2019

Description

WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018
WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2018
A SUNDAY TIMES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2019

‘A masterpiece of history and memoir’ Evening Standard

‘Superb. This is a necessary book – painful, harrowing, tragic, but also uplifting’ The Times

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Little Lien wasn’t taken from her Jewish parents in the Hague – she was given away in the hope that she might be saved. Hidden and raised by a foster family in the provinces during the Nazi occupation, she survived the war only to find that her real parents had not. Much later, she fell out with her foster family, and Bart van Es – the grandson of Lien’s foster parents – knew he needed to find out why.

His account of tracing Lien and telling her story is a searing exploration of two lives and two families. It is a story about love and misunderstanding and about the ways that our most painful experiences – so crucial in defining us – can also be redefined.

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‘Luminous, elegant, haunting – I read it straight through’ Philippe Sands, author of East West Street

‘Deeply moving. Writes with an almost Sebaldian simplicity and understatement’
Guardian

Sensational and gripping . . . shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of our time’ Judges of the Costa Book of the Year 2018

Additional information

Weight 233 g
Dimensions 198 × 129 × 18 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

280

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

940.5318092 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K