Winner of the Nike Prize, Poland’s most prestigious literary award Joanna Olczak-Ronikier is one of Poland’s most admired dramatists, screenwriters, and authors. In the Garden of Memory, her most acclaimed work, traces the lives of four generations of her own family—Polish Jews who were members of one of the country’s most illustrious clans, noted for its achievements in business, politics, and culture—as they lived, struggled, and (mostly) survived through the turbulent twentieth century. Rich with tales of bravery as well as poignant, sometimes comic anecdotes of everyday life, the book follows the family members as they scattered around the world to European spas, tsarist prisons, Soviet war camps, and the Royal Air Force. Tracing their roots to a renowned Austrian rabbi, the family members included an array of amazing characters. One became an industrial magnate who founded the Citroën automobile company in France; another was a Communist revolutionary who ended up being arrested, tortured, and executed by Stalin’s police. One worked as an undercover agent, another as a zoologist in France. One became a notable Polish publisher, another a leading Freudian psychiatrist. Inevitably, the tragic history of the Second World War and its catastrophic impact on European Jews looms darkly over the narrative, yet remarkably enough only two members of the clan were killed in the Holocaust. Today the survivors have continued the family journey around the world, including in the United States. Beautifully translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, In the Garden of Memory is ultimately the uplifting account of a family that never gave up hope and never gave in. A "stunning family memoir . . . that reads less like a conventional memoir and more like an intimate cultural history. . . . This is a triumph of remarkable breadth and capacity, and those drawn to history and lived memory will be enthralled."--Publishers Weekly BookLife (Editor's Pick) "The book's engaging text is accompanied by a treasure trove of family photographs, letters, diary entries, and other historical ephemera peppered throughout each chapter. These visual elements combine with the author's engrossing storytelling to create an intimate, yet sweeping, saga. A poignant, tour de force story of survival across multiple generations of a Jewish family. . . . an instant classic."--Kirkus Reviews "It's hard not to regard Joanna Olczak-Ronikier as a magician, one who brings to life lost worlds. The celebrated Polish writer's soulful family memoir In the Garden of Memory is an enchanting, descriptive reconstruction--and even a spiritual resuscitation--of Jewish life in Poland from the last third of the 19th century until the end of World War II."--Tunku Varadarajan, The Wall Street Journal "There is much to this family story that is universal. The early years of Julia's widowhood when the children do without many pleasures, followed by the inheritance that pays for luxurious travel and the confident pursuit of husbands for her daughters with dowries funded, read like a Jewish Victorian novel. The descriptions of Russia in 1937 are terrifying. Her account of the years of hiding from the Germans is powerful. . . . The life to which [the Horwitzes] had been raised was so rich in art and poetry, so cosmopolitan and materially comfortable, that it is easy to see how they missed seeing the catastrophes that loomed ahead. At least there were gifted storytellers among their ranks."--Robert Siegel, Moment magazine "Like a great Russian novel bursting with colorful, wildly different characters, In the Garden of Memory presents the human side of the long, rich, poignant, story of Poland from the late 19th century through partition and two world wars. . . . It's a masterful, multi-generational portrait of a family that endures even as their world descends into chaos."--Annik LaFarge, author of Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions "Powerful memories from a masterful chronicler of a sprawling family living through the glories and tragedies of Poland over the 19th and 20th centuries."--John Darnton, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his reporting on Poland Joanna Olczak-Ronikier was born in 1934 and is a highly acclaimed writer and journalist. In the Garden of Memory (W ogrodzie pamieci) won the Nike Annual Literary Prize in Poland in 2002 and was also shortlisted for the prestigious Wingate Literary Prize 2005, awarded by the Jewish Quarterly. She has also written plays for radio and theatre, as well as the screenplay for a major television serial about the history of a 19th-century Kraków family. In 1956, she cofounded the Piwnica pod Baranami Cabaret in Kraków, a literary and political gathering place that is popular to this day. Her grandparents, the Mortkowicz family, ran one of the best publishing houses and literary bookshops in Poland before World War Two. Antonia