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ABOUT THE BOOK

Lulu is five. She lives on Java with her father, a dedicated colonial doctor; her mother, a beautiful, narcissistic would-be artist; her aunt Margot; and, unexpectedly, her father's brother, Uncle Felix. By day she plays outside. By night, when the grown-ups are asleep, she inhabits a mysterious world in which reality and fantasy merge, and human beings, animals, and plants are transformed by moonlight into gods and demons. On her nocturnal wanderings, Lulu witnesses puzzling scenes among the adults, and when she innocently describes them, commotion ensues. Suddenly, commanded by her grandfather, the family abandons the idyllic tropical base and returns to Holland. But the year is 1939, and Lulu's family is Jewish. Forced into hiding by the German invasion, Lulu leaves childhood and enters a hostile world, sustained only by her father's love (her mother decamped for London) and her own fierce, increasingly-tested courage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Helga Ruebsamen was born in 1934 in Jakarta, Indonesia, and spent her early childhood on Java. In 1939 her family travelled to Europe, and they stayed in The Hague throughout the war. She worked as a journalist for Het Vaderland, a newspaper in The Hague, before becoming a freelance writer. She is the author of five collections of short stories and two previous novels. The Song and The Truth is her first work to be published in English.

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