EXILE MUSIC - Viking

An oft-untold piece of WWII history is the focus of this novel about a Jewish refugee family in

Bolivia. In 1930s Vienna, a young girl named Orly flees her home with her parents in the wake of the annexation of Austria by Germany and the tightening restrictions on the Jewish population under Nazi rule. The only country to which they are able to obtain visas is Bolivia, and Orly and her parents find themselves without money, friends, or any knowledge of Spanish in La Paz, which seems harsh and unsophisticated after the urbane world of Vienna. Orly adapts quickly to a new continent even as her parents struggle to leave their old life behind them, and the family waits anxiously for news of Orly’s older brother, who remained in Europe, working with the French Resistance. Told over the course of two decades, this is a beautiful coming-of-age tale, following Orly as she questions her sexuality and struggles to come to terms with the horrors she escaped in her homeland. Moving, evocative, and well-researched, this is sure to linger in readers’ minds long after the last page has been turned.

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