In the autumn of 1942, two young Polish women flee the ghetto and embark on a journey into the heart of enemy territory, working as hired laborers in the factories, farms, and villages of wartime Germany. “In this powerful and affecting novel, Ida Fink writes about a journey that takes us close to the heart of darkness but which is all the more poignant for the nuances of shadow, and somtimes even of light. Through the story of two sisters who take on several false identities to disguise thier Jewishness and survive, Fink exposes, with acute delicacy of detail, the perversions of human relations, the brutalities and ocasional acts of mercy, the cruel prejudices and the necessary lies that took place in the somber context of the Holocaust. This is a unique and beautiful novel about the most difficult of subjects, in which the author confronts mortal fear and a sicknes unto death without losing the sense of her protagonists' fragile and courageous humanity.” ―Eva Hofffman, author of Lost in Translation Ida Fink is the author of A Scrap of Time ("remarkable," New York Times ) and The Journey ("a gift," the New Yorker ). Born in Poland in 1921, she lived in a ghetto throughout 1942 and went into hiding until the of the war. Francine Prose is the author of numerous highly acclaimed works of fiction, including Household Saints, Primitive People, and Blue Angel . Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, and The Paris Review . She is a contributing editor at Harper's , and she writes regularly on art for The Wall Street Journal . She lives in New York City.