What inspired you to write the book?
My grandmother had a twin brother, a German fighter pilot, who died during WWII. He wrote a farewell letter to my grandmother, towards the end of 1944. That letter, however, was held up in the East, when the Berlin Wall was erected – and it only reached my grandmother in 1990… 46 years after his death. I had just returned home from school when I found my grandmother sitting at our kitchen table, her eyes swollen from crying. I was 14, we had barely touched on the Second World War in my history class. But I will always remember Adolf Hitler looking at me from that crumpled envelope, yellowed with age. This is what the book is about and a lot more.
How does the book connect with the present generation?
I think what essentially creates relevance for the young is that it brings back memories from a lost generation. Both the main characters, the protagonist Maya, who is in the past and the heroine Martha, who is in the present, are identifiable for younger readers.
Will there be a follow-up project?
I didn’t think of that while writing my first book, but I am now looking forward to going down that road one more time.
Where’s the book available?
The book can be bought online on Amazon or in Magrudy’s.
