'Powerful' family memoir of Holocaust signed by HQ

Zipora Klein Jakob has signed a deal with HQ for The Forbidden Daughter: The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor after pitching it to HarperCollins c.e.o. Brian Murray at last year’s London Book Fair. 

While researching her own family history, Klein Jakob became interested in her cousin Elida, and was determined to share her story of survival with a wider audience. The book was originally self-pubilshed via Amazon before Klein Jakobs interested Murray at LBF 2022. HC US acquired the book, with HQ commissioning editor Marleigh Price buying UK and Commonwealth rights from her American colleague Kelsey Young.

The Forbidden Daughter will be published in April 2024 and is about Elida, born in the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania during the Nazi Occupation. Her parents, Tzila and Dr Jonah Friedmann, made the decision to smuggle Elida out of the ghetto, relying on the kindness of strangers to protect her. The "horrors of the Holocaust leave Elida orphaned and alone, yet in spite of her circumstances, she survives, changing families, countries, continents, and even names, countless times". 

Price said: “I was blown away by the extraordinary story of Elida and her survival in the face of insurmountable odds. Among the horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust, the risks undertaken by ordinary people to help save those facing persecution is a powerful reminder to us all of the importance of human kindness.” 

Klein Jakobs was a teacher, a manager at the Open University and now coaches memoirists.