Rachel Seiffert

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2026FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE DARK ROOM AND A BOY IN WINTER'A complex, intelligent, deeply compassionate novel about the unglamorous aftermath of war . . . A brilliant piece of story-telling' ANDREW MILLER, author of THE LAND IN WINTER'This fine novel investigates the fate of displaced people in the hazardous, dirty backwash of the second world war' GUARDIAN'Marvellous . . . a wide-ranging novel that beautifully balances the tumultuous reach of history with the everyday concerns of ordinary people' DAILY MAIL'Powerful . . . Seiffert's writing beautifully captures this devastating moment of history' SPECTATORTo be truly alive means having to make choices. To be truly alive is also, quite simply, to love. Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers - forced labourers - fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands. Peace brings more soldiers - but English this time - and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night. The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter's events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can't carry his secret alone. 'Rachel Seiffert's outstanding novel is full of feeling but without sentimentality' JUDGES OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR FICTION'This entire novel reverberates in ways that only haunt the reader more and more deeply, long after its last page' PAUL HARDING, author of THIS OTHER EDEN'She has brought to life a complex interaction between survivors on both sides with humanity and compassion' LINDA GRANT, author of THE STORY OF THE FOREST'The patron saint of this gripping novel is Bertolt Brecht. This is a fascinating novel by one of our very best writers' JEWISH CHRONICLE

The new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Dark Room and A Boy in Winter''This fine novel investigates the fate of displaced people in the hazardous, dirty backwash of the second world war'' GUARDIAN''A complex, intelligent, deeply compassionate novel about the unglamorous aftermath of war . . . A brilliant piece of story-telling - stubbornly hopeful'' ANDREW MILLER''Prose that is so lucid, so understated . . . this entire novel reverberates in ways that only haunt the reader more and more deeply, long after its last page'' PAUL HARDING, Booker prize author of THIS OTHER EDENTo be truly alive means having to make choices. To be truly alive is also, quite simply, to love.Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers - forced labourers - fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands.Peace brings more soldiers - but English this time - and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night.The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter''s events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can''t carry his secret alone.''Marvellous . . . Seiffert juggles a very large cast with immense skill in a wide-ranging novel that beautifully balances the tumultuous reach of history with the everyday concerns of ordinary people'' DAILY MAIL''Searingly beautiful . . . powerful . . . Seiffert''s writing beautifully captures this devastating moment of history'' SPECTATOR''I love that her novels take me to unexplored places and times . . . she has brought to life a complex interaction between survivors on both sides with humanity and compassion'' LINDA GRANT''I read Once the Deed Is Done with great pleasure . . . Great characters taking us deep into the physical challenges and moral quandaries of the time'' TIM PEARS''Such a beautiful and powerful book, emotional yet unsentimental . . . unforgettably reminds us of the cost of war'' LUCY JAGO''The patron saint of this gripping novel is Bertolt Brecht. This is a fascinating novel by one of our very best writers'' JEWISH CHRONICLE

Early on a grey November morning in 1941, only weeks after the German invasion, a small Ukrainian town is overrun by the SS. This new novel from the award-winning author of the Booker Prize short-listed The Dark Room tells of the three days that follow and the lives that are overturned in the process. Penned in with his fellow Jews, under threat of deportation, Ephraim anxiously awaits word of his two sons, missing since daybreak. Come in search of her lover, to fetch him home again, away from the invaders, Yasia must confront new and harsh truths about those closest to her. Here to avoid a war he considers criminal, German engineer Otto Pohl is faced with an even greater crime unfolding behind the lines, and no one but himself to turn to. And in the midst of it all is Yankel, a boy determined to survive this. But to do so, he must throw in his lot with strangers. As their stories mesh, each of Rachel Seiffert's characters comes to know the compromises demanded by survival, the oppressive power of fear, and the possibility of courage in the face of terror. Rich with a rare compassion and emotional depth, A Boy in Winter is a story of hope when all is lost and of mercy when the times have none.

A megrázó és szép történet akkor játszódik Németországban, amikor a második világháború befejeződik, és a szövetséges csapatok megszállják a legyőzött országot. Öt gyerek, akinek náci szüleit börtönbe zárták, a tizenéves Lore vezetésével elindul Dél-Németországból Hamburgba, a nagymamához. Erről a viszontagságos útról szól az érzelmekkel teli regény.