Overview

In a powerful work of memoir, history and biography, Jane Messer retraces the tragic and hopeful steps of her Jewish German grandmother, Bella. From pre-war Berlin to Tel Aviv to Melbourne, Messer follows Bella's journey and tries to understand her choices, including why she abandoned her son Michael in England before the war. Along the way, she speaks with historians in Germany, peace activists, scholars and refugees in Israel and Palestine, and, constantly, to her beloved father. Shifting between the personal and the historical with lyrical precision, Raven Mother grapples with the grand scale of global events and the intimate struggles of family and memory. 'In seeking the truth about her grandmother, Messer uncovers far more than a family history. Her thorough journey reveals profound questions of identity, loss, and displacement, while exposing the deep-rooted racism and injustice woven through the world she explores.' Majeda Awawdeh 'With evenhandedness and generosity of spirit, Jane Messer's minutely researched history of dispossession and genocide embraces both her Jewish roots stretching back to Berlin before the Holocaust and, with unflinching clear-sightedness, the story of Palestine. It is a plain-speaking, remarkable and deeply affecting book.' Robert Dessaix 'Raven Mother takes us on a deeply moving journey of discovery. While we have begun to understand how tenaciously the traumas of our parents live on within us, it takes a writer of Messer's calibre to apprehend this phenomenon with such verve, candour and insight. As her travels into her father's past demonstrate so palpably, what we draw from our parents' complex histories can change over time if we are brave enough to face them.' Sara Dowse 'A beautifully etched excursion through muddied layers of history and memories of place, Raven Mother is an unexpected homage to the fault lines of family.' Andrea Durbach 'An important work of enquiry into one of the most contested pieces of land on this earth through one family's story. A fine book illustrating the sorrows and resilience of life and why we must not look away from the suffering of others.' Susan Johnson 'Wise, poignant and beautiful, Raven Mother builds an arch over the here-and-now to connect an individual life with a family and communal past. This is a book that matters. It can only enrich our understanding of the present.' Malcolm Knox 'Messer's search for her grandmother is gripping and forensic, asking difficult questions about history and memory. It is both epic and personal. A moving and beautifully written memoir.' Catharine Lumby '...poetically beautiful, fascinating, special...so rare in the landscape of writing about IsraelPalestine and JewishArab relations.' Yonatan Mendel

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9781761170638

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Jane Messer is the accomplished writer of novels, short stories and essays, is a regular contributor to The Conversation, and is a former Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Macquarie University. She is the founder and director of StorySALOON, a live show and podcast dedicated to Australian short stories. As the daughter of a refugee, she finds herself compelled to write about fractured lives, marginal people and migration.

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