Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2017
256 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
Rich with a rare compassion and emotional depth, A Boy in Winter is a story of hope when all is lost and of mercy when the times have none.
Early on a grey November morning in 1941, only weeks after the German invasion, a small Ukrainian town is overrun by the SS. This new novel from the award-winning author of the Booker Prize short-listed The Dark Room tells of the three days that follow and the lives that are overturned in the process.
Penned in with his fellow Jews, under threat of deportation, Ephraim anxiously awaits word of his two sons, missing since daybreak.
Come in search of her lover, to fetch him home again, away from the invaders, Yasia must confront new and harsh truths about those closest to her.
Here to avoid a war he considers criminal, German engineer Otto Pohl is faced with an even greater crime unfolding behind the lines, and no one but himself to turn to.
And in the midst of it all is Yankel, a boy determined to survive this. But to do so, he must throw in his lot with strangers.
As their stories mesh, each of Rachel Seiffert's characters comes to know the compromises demanded by survival, the oppressive power of fear, and the possibility of courage in the face of terror.
"This novel allows the reader to imagine and to empathize, to have a vivid moral experience, while managing to avoid the surfeit of violent, horrific detail that can sometimes result in a kind of genocide porn. All the notes of the Holocaust song, including the rare ray of hope, are played in this spare, fast-moving novel." - Kirkus
"Ms. Seiffert's prose is not showy, but graceful and precise. The misery of the dank streets is relieved by flashes of light and humanity….Most literature of the 'third generation' after the war explores the impact on its descendants. Ms. Seiffert's fictions are different: they inhabit the events themselves. Yet from all too familiar horror they swerve into the unexpected, into a new story - a gleam in the darkness that readers haven't seen before." - The Economist
"The primal energy in this novel is a moral sore that will never heal … [a] fine novel." - John Sutherland, The Times
"Seiffert's cool tone never wavers - her spare, beautiful prose is a joy to read." - Helen Dunmore, The Guardian
"Rachel Seiffert's new novel A Boy in Winter stretches over only three days, through which you encounter all the emotions of the time, horror and instinct for survival, family loyalty, and above all perhaps, bravery." - James Naughtie, BBC World TV
"Spare, elegant and devastating." - Psychologies
"Completely captures those times in a vivid, precise, captivating and terrible way." - Philippe Sands, author of East West Street
This information about A Boy in Winter was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rachel Seiffert's first novel, The Dark Room, was short-listed for the Booker Prize, won the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Prize, and was the basis for the acclaimed motion picture Lore. She was one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003; in 2004, Field Study, her collection of short stories, received an award from PEN International. Her second novel, Afterwards, and her third, The Walk Home, were both long-listed for the Orange/Bailey's Prize for Fiction. In 2011, she received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Seiffert's books have been published in eighteen languages. She lives in London with her family.
The Stone Home
by Crystal Hana Kim
A moving family drama and coming-of-age story revealing a dark corner of South Korean history.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
