Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe

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“Extraordinarily tender and finely wrought.” ― Eliza Griswold, writer of The Tenth Parallel

“It’s long been assumed of the region where my grandmother used to be born…that someday every year the dead will come home,” Inara Verzemnieks writes in this exquisite story of war, exile, and reconnection. Her grandmother’s stories recalled one true home: the circle of relatives farm left at the back of in Latvia, where, all through WWII, her grandmother Livija and her grandmother’s sister, Ausma, were separated. They would not see every other again for more than 50 years. Raised by her grandparents in Washington State, Inara grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, making a song folk songs about a land she had never visited.

When Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home, in a box of her grandmother’s belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the as far back as the remote village where her circle of relatives broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile yearly for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left at the back of. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija’s survival through years as a refugee. Weaving these two parts of the circle of relatives story together in spellbinding, lyrical prose, she gives us a profound and cathartic account of loss, survival, resilience, and love.

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