{"product_id":"9781785789816-box-with-the-sunflower-clasp","title":"The Box with the Sunflower Clasp","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eUncovering a Jewish Family's Flight to Wartime Shanghai\u003cbr\u003eA sweeping family memoir that tells the hidden history of a young Jewish woman's escape from 1930s Vienna to Shanghai.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e*SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL CHRISTOPHER BLAND PRIZE 2024*\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eA transfixingly readable amalgam of memoir and history. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eSuperbly written and researched. [Meller]\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003ehas turned the raw material of her life into literature'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIan Thomson, author of \u003ci\u003ePrimo Levi\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRachel Meller was never close to her aunt Lisbeth, a cool, unemotional woman with a drawling Viennese-Californian accent, a cigarette in her hand. But when Lisbeth died, she left Rachel an intricately carved Chinese box with a sunflower clasp. Inside the box were photographs, letters and documents that led Rachel to uncover a story she had never known: that of a passionate Jewish teenager growing up in elegant Vienna, who was caught up by war, and forced to flee to Shanghai.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFar from home, in a strange city, Lisbeth and her parents build a new life - a life of small joys and great hardship, surrounded by many others who, like them, have fled Hitler and the Nazis. 1930s Shanghai is a metropolis where the old rules do not apply - a city of fabulous wealth and crushing poverty, where disease is rife, and gangsters rub shoulders with rich émigrés; where summer brings unspeakable heat, and winter is bitterly cold; and where European refugees build a community and, maybe, a young woman can find love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSet against a backdrop of the war in the Far East, \u003ci\u003eThe Box with the Sunflower Clasp\u003c\/i\u003e is a sweeping family memoir that tells the hidden history of the Jews of Shanghai. Rachel Meller writes with elegance and insight as she examines what it means to survive, and what the legacy of displacement and war might mean for the generation that comes afterwards.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40835617063009,"sku":"9781785789816","price":23.28,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_40213225_e7c53af7-fae4-4325-b65c-f0ba6df1d079.jpg?v=1772700458","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781785789816-box-with-the-sunflower-clasp","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}