“In this powerful and affecting novel, Ida Fink writes about a journey that takes us close to the heart of darkness but which is all the more poignant for the nuances of shadow, and somtimes even of light. Through the story of two sisters who take on several false identities to disguise thier Jewishness and survive, Fink exposes, with acute delicacy of detail, the perversions of human relations, the brutalities and ocasional acts of mercy, the cruel prejudices and the necessary lies that took place in the somber context of the Holocaust. This is a unique and beautiful novel about the most difficult of subjects, in which the author confronts mortal fear and a sicknes unto death without losing the sense of her protagonists' fragile and courageous humanity.” —Eva Hofffman, author of Lost in Translation