The moving story of a brother and a sister caught in the tide of the Cold War

Käthe is a Jewish sculptor living in East Berlin. A survivor of the Nazi era, she is a fervent socialist who has been using her political connections to secure more significant commissions. Devoted entirely to success, she is a cruel and abrasive mother to her children. She barely acknowledges Ellas vulnerable loneliness and Thomass quiet aspirations, and her hard-nosed brutality forces her children to build an imaginary world as a shelter from the coldness that surrounds them.

As the Berlin Wall goes up, dreams are shattered, lives fall apart and this dark fairytale of East Germany unfolds.

Julia Franckwas born in Berlin in 1970. Her novelThe Blind Side of the Heartwon the German Book Prize and sold over a million copies in Germany alone. It was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize, and was named one of the best books of the year by theGuardianand US magazineKirkus Reviews.Back to Backis her second novel to be translated into English. She lives in Berlin.

The desperately moving story of a brother and a sister caught in the tide of the Cold War, from the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlisted author, Julia Franck.