Cut Out Girl
Bart van Es
Narrated By: Bart van Es
Duration: 8 hours and 49 minutes
What to expect
*** WINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018 ***
WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2018
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Cut Out Girl written and read by Bart van Es.
'A masterpiece of history and memoir' Evening Standard
'Superb. This is a necessary book - painful, harrowing, tragic, but also uplifting' The Times
Little Lien wasn't taken from her Jewish parents - she was given away in the hope that she might be saved. Hidden and raised by a foster family in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, she survived the war only to find that her real parents had not. Much later, she fell out with her foster family, and Bart van Es - the grandson of Lien's foster parents - knew he needed to find out why.
His account of tracing Lien and telling her story is a searing exploration of two lives and two families. It is a story about love and misunderstanding and about the ways that our most painful experiences - so crucial in defining us - can also be redefined.
'Luminous, elegant, haunting - I read it straight through' Philippe Sands, author of East West Street
'Deeply moving. Writes with an almost Sebaldian simplicity and understatement' Guardian
'Remarkable, deeply moving' Penelope Lively
Genre
Memoirs, Autobiography: historical, political & military, The Holocaust, Second World War, European history, Family history, tracing ancestors, Fascism & Nazism
Listen to a sample
Harrowing . . . profoundly moving
Powerful . . . extraordinary
Astonishing. Van Es has created a masterpiece of history and memoir, concluding on a note of reconciliation, hope and great love
Deeply moving, this is a remarkable memoir
A nuanced, moving, and unusual "hidden child" account
Deeply moving. Writes with an almost Sebaldian simplicity and understatement
An extraordinary story, harrowing, deeply affecting. This fascinating story is guaranteed to haunt you
Sensational and gripping . . . shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of our time
Luminous, elegant, haunting - I read it straight through
An extraordinary, harrowing story of loss, survival and love
An awe-inspiring account of the tragedies and triumphs within the world of the Holocaust's "hide-away" children, and of the families who sheltered them
Harrowing and beautiful
Brought to life with family photographs and diary entries that add further impact to Lien's harrowing memories and testimony - this deeply affecting and fascinating story is guaranteed to haunt you
Fascinating, beautifully written. Van Es carefully salvages Lien's story and creates a deeply moving and complex book about war, atrocity and human suffering
Remarkable - the story of one traumatic childhood, deeply moving, and told with great dexterity, allowing the wisdoms of today to run parallel with the absorbing narrative of wartime events
A moving story of personal and family history, with a scholar's objective eye for the bigger picture.
Superb. This is a necessary book - painful, harrowing, tragic, but also uplifting
The Cut Out Girl is a reminder of the extraordinary richness of archives and the treasures released by scholarly research
Compassionate and thoughtfully rendered, the book is both a memorable portrait of a remarkable woman and a testament to the healing power of understanding. A complex and uplifting tale