Of everyone in her complicated family, Eva was closest to her grandfather: a charismatic painter - and a keeper of secrets. So when he dies, she's hit by a greater loss - of the questions he never answered, and the past he never shared.
It's then she finds the letter from the Jewish Museum in Berlin. They have uncovered the testimony he gave after his forced labour service in Hungary, which took him to the death camps and then to England as a refugee. This is how he survived.
But there is a deeper story that Eva will unravel - of how her grandfather learnt to live afterwards. As she confronts the lies that have haunted her family, their identity shifts and her own takes shape. The testament is in her hands.
Kim Sherwood's extraordinary first novel is a powerful statement of intent. Beautifully written, moving and hopeful, it crosses the tidemark where the third generation meets the first, finding a new language to express love, legacy and our place within history.
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
ISBN: 9781786488671
Number of pages: 448
Weight: 726 g
Dimensions: 240 x 162 x 39 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'What a writer. I was totally captivated. A compelling, moving and ultimately uplifting story that delivered on its promise to fill the void left by loss.' - Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
'An important and beautifully written novel by a young writer of immense talent. I was deeply moved.' - Andrew Miller
'Achingly powerful, Sherwood's impossibly beautiful prose captivated me from first page to last. Testament tells a fractured history as if it were an intimate memory. A work I won't soon forget' - Guy Gunaratne, Booker-prize longlisted author of In Our Mad and Furious City
'Kim Sherwood's poetic fiction looks at history's impact and the morality of forgetting... Her writing is elegant and highly effective. This novel explores big ideas - some of the biggest ideas there are - but its power as a work of fiction lies in the personal... Sherwood pulls the threads of her narrative together with great skill to deliver a sad and beautiful book.' - Kathleen MacMahon, Irish Times
'Moving and vivid' - Leaf Arbuthnot, The Sunday Times
'Powerful and moving... Hugely poignant, beautifully written' - Rebecca Wilcock, Independent
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“Moving and totally captivating story....”
The focus point of this wonderfully told story is the witness testimony that Eva’s Jewish Hungarian grandfather gave of his time in Nazi concentration camps.
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“A formulaic return to the Holocaust novel”
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I'm reading this book as part of shadow judging the The Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award. I am part of the Shadow Panel which will make its own choice from the shortlist for the... More
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