A novel drawn from a little known chapter of World War II history - the brutal Soviet deportations of 1.5 million Polish civilians to forced labor camps in Siberia shortly after the Soviets occupied eastern Poland at the beginning of the war. It explores the impacts of this shattering experience on a family from four points of view.
This stunning debut novel from poet Krysia Jopek takes a fresh stylistic approach to storytelling, fusing a minimalist narrative with lush lyricism.
Jopek draws on a little known chapter of World War II—the Soviet deportations of 1.5 million innocent Polish civilians to forced labor camps in Siberia shortly after the Soviets occupied eastern Poland at the beginning of the war. Beautifully written, lyrical and poetic, Maps and Shadows explores the impacts of this shattering experience on the family from four points of view.
Slowly the threads are woven together—the father’s secret shame at not being able to protect his family; the son’s need to grow up quickly; the daughter’s descent into nightmares, seeking comfort in broken bits of poetry consigned to scraps torn from a precious salvaged dictionary; the mother’s instant aging, her hidden fears and worry.
World War II was perhaps the most transformative event of the twentieth century. Maps and Shadows illuminates a lost piece of this history, while addressing themes of displacement, loss, resilience and, ultimately, new beginnings in a new land—experiences familiar to a vast number of contemporary readers.
