TY  - BOOK
AU  - Verzemnieks,Inara
TI  - Among the living and the dead: a tale of exile and homecoming on the war roads of Europe 
SN  - 9780393245110
PY  - 2017///]
CY  - New York
PB  - W.W. Norton & Company
KW  - Verzemnieks, Inara.
KW  - Verzemnieks, Inara
KW  - Latvian Americans
KW  - Biography
KW  - Social life and customs
KW  - Refugees
KW  - Washington (State)
KW  - World War, 1939-1945
KW  - Latvia
KW  - Latvians
KW  - Farm life
KW  - Social conditions
KW  - Biographies
KW  - lcgft
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages [279]-282)
N2  - "'It's long been assumed of this region, where my grandmother was born, ...that at some point each year the dead will come home,' Inara Verzemnieks writes in this heartrending story of war, exile, and reconnection. Her grandmother's stories recalled one true home: the family farm left behind in Latvia during the Second World War. There, her grandmother Livija and her great-aunt, Ausma, were separated. Livija fled the fighting to become a refugee; Ausma was exiled to Siberia under Stalin: the sisters would not see each other again for more than fifty years. Raised by her grandparents in Washington State, Inara grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, singing folk songs about a land she had never visited. In a box of her grandmother's belongings, Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home. This tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. In Latvia, Inara comes to know Ausma, her family, their land and its stories, and there pieces together Livija's survival through years as a refugee. Weaving together these two parts of the family story in spellbinding, lyrical prose, Verzemnieks gives us a profound and cathartic account of love, loss, and survival."--Jacket
ER  -