Splendid and absorbing . . . Drndic] is writing to witness, and to make the pain stick . . . These dense and satisfying pages capture the crowdedness of memory. New York Times Book Review

Haya Tedeschi sits alone in Gorizia, in northeastern Italy, surrounded by a basket of photographs and newspaper clippings. Now an old woman, she waits to be reunited after sixty-two years with her son, fathered by an SS officer and stolen from her by the German authorities as part of Himmler s clandestine Lebensborn project.

Haya reflects on her Catholicized...