With breathtaking descriptions and dialogue that reveal the best and cruelest in human nature, Sonata in Auschwitz confirms the author's calling for historical fiction. A baby born in the barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau in October 1944 and a sonata composed by a young German officer on the same date, also in Auschwitz, give rise to two intersecting and complementary stories. Decades later, Amália, a Portuguese woman of German descent, begins to lift the veil on her family's Nazi past through a score revealed to her by her great-grandmother. The doubt that her grandfather, presumed dead before the end of World War II, might still be alive in Rio de Janeiro leads Amália to cross the ocean and meet a Jewish couple who survived the Holocaust. The rise of Nazism in Berlin, the saga of the Hungarian Jews of Transylvania, the mysteries of the Polish extermination camp, and the post-war period in a house full of secrets on the shores of a Potsdam lake provide the paths Amália will follow to piece together the puzzle. Luize Valente is an author whose plots spring from her privileged imagination and are fleshed out through rigorous historical research. Crafted with extreme sensitivity and investigative precision, her narrative immerses the reader in mystery, suspense, and profound feelings.
