Mardle Books scoops Kirsten's memoir and family history

Mardle Books has scooped Irena’s Gift: An Epic World War II Memoir of Sisters, Secrets and Survival by Karen Kirsten.

Editorial director Duncan Proudfoot acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, Australia and New Zealand from Vanessa Kerr at Aevitas Creative Management UK. The book will be published on 31st August 2023.

The synopsis for Irena’s Gift reads: "In 1942, in Nazi-occupied Poland, a Jewish child was smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto in a backpack. That child was author Karen Kirsten’s mother, but she knew nothing about this extraordinary event until one day a letter arrived from a stranger.

"After Karen eventually discovered the grandparents she loved dearly were in fact not her biological grandparents, she travelled the globe to uncover her family’s past and to find the answers to baffling questions: why did her adoptive grandmother treat Karen’s mother so unkindly? Why did she hide the truth that she was actually her mother’s aunt? And why, if she appeared to dislike Karen’s mother, did she risk her life to save her?"

Proudfoot commented: "Irena’s Gift is an insightful exploration of the lies we tell to survive, and what happens when those lies unravel. Karen Kirsten meticulously reveals the truth behind her family history, repairing the gaps of real-life stories which had been torn apart by war."

Kirsten added: "With the rise in dehumanising language toward people fleeing war, it is timely that Mardle Books will publish my story about the secrets refugees keep from their children in order to thrive in new countries after losing everything."