Family History of Fear: A Memoir [Paperback]

It wasn’t until she was nineteen that Agata Tuszyńska, one of Poland’s most admired poets and cultural historians, discovered that she was Jewish. In this profoundly moving and resonant work, she uncovers the truth about her family’s history—a mother who entered the Warsaw Ghetto at age eight and escaped just before the uprising; a father, one of five thousand Polish soldiers taken prisoner in 1939, who would become the country’s most famous radio sports announcer; and other relatives and their mysterious pasts—as she tries to make sense of anti-Semitism in her country. The poignant story of one woman coming to terms with herself,Family History of Fearis also a searing portrait of Polish Jewish life, before and after Hitler’s Third Reich.“Illuminating. . . . Tuszyńska offers us vignettes and personal narratives that track the ever-shifting course of Polish-Jewish relations in the 20th century.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Family History of Fearis not only a memoir or work of restorative personal history. It’s an act of un-erasure. Tracing her bloodlines of fear, secrecy and self-loathing, [Tuszyńska] uncovers a history of survival and solidarity, of profound love.” —The Globe and Mail(Toronto)

“A work of fierce courage. . . . [Family History of Fear] is Tuszyńska’s beautiful, terrifying fight to bring her heritage alive.” —The Jewish Book Council
 
“A family saga meticulously re-created . . . A literary account of searching for one’s identity.” — Ryszard Kapuściński´, author ofThe Soccer WarandImperium

“A moving memoir.” —Toronto StarAgata Tuszyńska is the author of six collections of internationally translated poetry, a biography of Isaac Bashevis Singer,Vera Gran: The Accused, andBrls8