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In the Shadow of the Banyan

Vaddey Ratner · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

Sarah's Key

Tatiana de Rosnay · 342 pages

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode. Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking th

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesTearjerkerSurvivor's Guilt
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Half of a Yellow Sun

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 448 pages

> With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor fu

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesRefugee ExperienceSurvivor's Guilt
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A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini · 416 pages

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an

TearjerkerRefugee ExperienceSurvivor's GuiltDeath of a Parent
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What Is the What

Dave Eggers · 475 pages

*What Is the What* is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children--the so-called Lost Boys--was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the Un

War AtrocitiesGenocide DepictedRefugee ExperienceSurvivor's Guilt
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The Storyteller

Jodi Picoult · 460 pages

Sage Singer becomes friends with an old man who is particularly beloved in her community after they strike up a conversation at the bakery where she works. Josef Weber is everyone's favorite retired teacher and Little League coach. One day he asks Sage for a favor, to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses, but then he tells her he deserves to die. Once he reveals his secret, Sage wonders if he is right.

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltTearjerker
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Between Shades of Gray

Ruta Sepetys · 348 pages

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circ

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesRefugee ExperienceTearjerker
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The Disappeared

Kim Echlin · 235 pages

A young woman from Montreal travels to war-ravaged Cambodia in search of her lover, Serey, a Cambodian refugee who returns to his home country when the borders are re-opened to find his family.

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesRefugee ExperienceLyrical Prose
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Girl at War

Sara Novic · 320 pages

When her happy life in 1991 Croatia is shattered by civil war, ten-year-old Ana Juric is embroiled in a world of guerilla warfare and child soldiers before making a daring escape to America, where years later she struggles to hide her past.

Survivor's GuiltRefugee ExperienceChild NarratorDeath of a Parent
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Schindler's List

Thomas Keneally · 429 pages

In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mer

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesRefugee ExperienceSurvivor's Guilt
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Everything Is Illuminated

Jonathan Safran Foer · 288 pages

A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, however, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis, Jr, J

War AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltGenocide DepictedLyrical Prose
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The Book Thief

Markus Zusak · 566 pages

The extraordinary #1 New York Times bestselling story about the ability of books to feed the soul is now a major motion picture. This enhanced ebook edition is perfect for new fans and collectors alike. It includes: · An exclusive video welcome to the enhanced edition from Markus Zusak. · The official movie trailer for The Book Thief. · Videos featurettes introducing Sophie Nélisse (Leisel Mem

TearjerkerGenocide DepictedLyrical ProseDeath of a Parent
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Forgotten Fire

Adam Bagdasarian · 304 pages

In 1915 Vahan Kenderian is living a life of privilege as the youngest son of a wealthy Armenian family in Turkey. This secure world is shattered when some family members are whisked away while others are murdered before his eyes. Vahan loses his home and family, and is forced to live a life he would never have dreamed of in order to survive. Somehow Vahan's incredible strength and spirit help h

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesDeath of a ParentSurvivor's Guilt
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Sophie's Choice

William Styron · 625 pages

The gripping, unforgettable story of Stingo, a 22-year-old writer; Sophie, a Polish-Catholic beauty who survived the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz; and Nathan, her mercurial lover. The three friends share magical, heart-warming times until doom overtakes them as Sophie's and Nathan's darkest secrets are revealed.

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltEmotional
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The Last Train to London

Meg Waite Clayton · 480 pages

Refugee ExperienceTearjerkerGenocide DepictedEmotional
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The Reader

Bernhard Schlink · 224 pages

Survivor's GuiltWar AtrocitiesGenocide DepictedEmotional
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Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History

Art Spiegelman · 296 pages

A story of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father's story and history itself.

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltDeath of a Parent
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Those Who Save Us

Jenna Blum · 496 pages

For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald. Driven by

War AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltGenocide DepictedEmotional
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The Shawl

Cynthia Ozick · 69 pages

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltLyrical Prose
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Code Name Verity

Elizabeth Wein · 347 pages

In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.

TearjerkerSurvivor's GuiltWar AtrocitiesEmotional
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Night

Elie Wiesel · 126 pages

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltDeath of a Parent
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First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

Loung Ung · 256 pages

From a childhood survivor of the Camdodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit. One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesRefugee ExperienceChild Narrator
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Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur

Halima Bashir, Damien Lewis · 352 pages

Like the single white eyelash that graces her row of dark lashes--seen by her people as a mark of good fortune--Halima Bashir's story stands out. Tears of the Desert is the first memoir ever written by a woman caught up in the war in Darfur. It is a survivor's tale of a conflicted country, a resilient people, and the uncompromising spirit of a young woman who refused to be silenced.Born into the Z

Genocide DepictedWar AtrocitiesRefugee ExperienceEmotional
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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

John Boyne · 240 pages

La atrocidad bajo la ingenua mirada de un niño.

Genocide DepictedTearjerkerWar AtrocitiesEmotional
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A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Anthony Marra · 416 pages

In a rural village in December 2004 Chechnya, a failed doctor Akhmed harbors the traumatized 8-year-old daughter of a father abducted by Russian forces and treats a series of wounded rebels and refugees while exploring the shared past that binds him to the child. "In a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle

War AtrocitiesSurvivor's GuiltLyrical ProseEmotional

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