…thoughtful and eloquent…Describing the feeling of arriving in Latvia, Verzemnieks says it was like her "DNA is singing"…Yet there's also the darker side of this singing DNA. The song of my DNA can make me deaf to the song of your DNA. Concepts of nation, land and blood helped create an independent Latvia, but, distorted by nativism and fascism, they also contributed to its undoing. Verzemnieks is too intelligent and humane a writer to fall into the nationalist trap, and her inquiry into the past confronts the uncomfortable aspects of Latvians' participation in the war…Verzemnieks is solid on her history. Even more, she offers a model for how to navigate it. When she reaches the limit of what she can know, she doesn't confuse it with the limit of what can be known. She also grasps that no final resolution is possible. The hurt that has been inflicted can never be completely healed. At best, one reaches a measure of understanding—including drawing the significant distinction between the hurt one inherits and the hurt one sustains—which, ideally, should stop you from inflicting this hurt on others.
Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe
"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 reconnection. Her grandmother's stories recalled one true home: 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 fifty years. Raised by her grandparents in Washington State, 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, in a box of her grandmother's belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile once a year for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left behind. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija's survival through 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.
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When Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home, in a box of her grandmother's belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile once a year for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left behind. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija's survival through 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.
Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe
"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 reconnection. Her grandmother's stories recalled one true home: 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 fifty years. Raised by her grandparents in Washington State, 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, in a box of her grandmother's belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile once a year for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left behind. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija's survival through 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.
When Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home, in a box of her grandmother's belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile once a year for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left behind. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija's survival through 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.
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Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe
Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940159955166 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 07/25/2023 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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