This close and intimate book is beautifully and sensitively written by Philip Marsden. It tells us something of his relationship with Zofia Ilinska, Cornish neighbours and their trips to Poland and Belarus together. Zofia gave Philip Marsden access to the papers and letters of her mother, Helena and it is Helena's voice that we hear very strongly in the novel. We hear Zofia's voice on the trips she shares with Philip to her old home in former Poland and these sections are emotional and sensitively written. Zofia is shown as a warm, generous and insightful woman and Philip's admiration of her shows through. The reunions in Belarus are heartwarming and poignant after so much time, as Zofia finds what has happened to her family home and visits family graves. The book is also full of information about this area of Eastern Europe as different armies march through it and borders change. The inter-war period when the part of Belarus Zofia lived in became part of Poland is depicted as a magical and very happy period. ( )

The interesting thing is they were originally IRISH! ( )

A woman Sofia living in Cornwall but brought up in the area between Belarus, Lithuania and Poland has the diary and letters of he mother Helena. These are the source of information for this book. It is he story of her landowner family's difficulties in World War I with the Germans on one side and the Russians of the czar initially and then the bolsheviks on the other. Aft WWI with Poland's independence there was an idyllic period between the wars. Then WWII: the escaped from the Russians and the Germans to Vilnius and eventually to England. The author is a young friend to the daughter Sofia. He focuses exclusively on the information from Helena's diary and letters. It is hard not to think of the fact that this area was heavily populated with Jews and almost none survived. ( )

Review previously posted on Amazon:

I loved the intimacy of this book. The sense of the relationship between the writer and his subject - a dear friend - and between those that peopled Zofia's life, predominantly her family, in Belorussia, Russia and Poland. The only thing lacking for me was that I liked Zofia, and want to know more about her life when she came to England, a different life, coloured very differently from the one she knew, which is recorded here. I wanted to know more about her poetry and how she came to it. And more of those she came to love here. If you like people you will love this book. If you are facinated by other cultures, other voices, then this book should be one on your list. It evokes its 'characters' vividly and the senses of sound, smell, sight and texture roll through the pages - you will be there. It is all between these covers. A passionate recommendation for a book of the drama and passion of a Slavic life! And the solidity and warmth of a Cornish friendship. ( )

Ilinska, Zofia > Travel > Belarus/Broânska, Helena, 1898-1981/Poles > Belarus > Biography/Belarus > Description and travel/Poland > Social life and customs > 1918-1945