Author Description

Escape to China presents in vivid, cherished detail the adventures and coming of age of Anna Szpiro. Played out against the backdrop of the Second World War, the book traces Anna's flight iwth her family from the Nazis as they invaded Poland, her secret crossing into Lithuania, their escape from Soviet troops as she trekked with her family across Russia and Siberia, and their harrowing travel to Japan and China. Anna's story is the story in microcosm of the dislocations and forced separations which marked the lives of so many émigrés during those terror-filled years. But it is also a story of triumph, an optimistic affirmation of the will to live and the ever-present desire for freedom from constraint and opperssion. Eloquently written, full of humor, filled with a child's wonder and innocent wisdom, it is a book to be enjoyed for the human lives it reveals, for the rich detail it presents, and for the varied dimensions of the human drama it plays out. -- from dust jacket.