Disclosure : This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming

“It`s long been assumed of the region where my grandmother was born… that at some point each year the dead will come home,” Inara Verzemnieks writes in this exquisite story of war, exile and homecoming. Her grandmother`s stories recalled the family farm left behind in Latvia, where, during WWII, her grandmother Livija and her grandmother`s sister, Ausma, were separated. They would not see each other again for more than 50 years. Raised by her grandparents in the USA, Inara grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, singing folk songs about a land she had never visited. When Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, and her grandfather`s own complex history, Inara pieces together Livija`s survival through the years as a refugee. Weaving these two parts of the family story together in spellbinding, lyrical prose, she gives us a profound and cathartic account of loss, survival, resilience and love.

Related Products:

The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings: A medieval ghost story The Living and the Dead in Winsford Let the Old Dead Make Room for the New Dead: Faber Stories The Dead Shall be Raised and Murder of a Quack Freedom in Exile The Other Exile: The Story of Fernao Lopes, St Helena and a Paradise Lost On Stalin`s Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics Living with A Dead Language: My Romance with Latin Olga`s Story The Art of Exile: A Vagabond Life The Extraordinary Tale of Kate Marsden and my Journey Across Siberia in her Footsteps Land of the Living Love and Exile Guy Martin: When You Dead, You Dead: My Adventures as a Road Racing Truck Fitter Dead Relatives Living to Tell the Tale Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging Empires of the Dead: How One Man`s Vision Led to the Creation of WWI`s War Graves Homecoming Dead Europe Only the Dead: A Levantine Tragedy The Ey Exhibition: Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904 Playlist for the Dead Exile Dead Men Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Are the Dinosaurs Dead , Dad? The Trauma Cleaner Being Dead is Bad for Business Lord of All the Dead Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad Seven Dead The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile Literature The Foreigner: Two Essays on Exile The General of the Dead army The Winter`s Tale Dead Man In Paradise The Spice Box Letters Lights In The Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe