Hatchards Booksellers on Piccadilly were delighted to host Bart van Es in the first of an event series with Slightly Foxed and the Biographers’ Club. Bart was interviewed by journalist and writer Rachel Cooke.
The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found is the powerful, harrowing, but also ultimately uplifting story about a young girl’s struggle to survive Nazi persecution, and a man’s attempt to unravel his family secrets. It was the winner of The Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2018 and the Costa Book of the Year.
Slightly Foxed
Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly and its acclaimed list of classic limited-edition memoirs have become something of an institution in the literary world. Contributors to the magazine include: Quentin Blake, Margaret Drabble, Adam Foulds, Melissa Harrison, Michael Holroyd, Penelope Lively, Robert Macfarlane, Dervla Murphy, Sarah Perry, Posy Simmonds, Adam Sisman and Ali Smith.
The Biographers’ Club
Founded in 1997, the Club is committed to supporting, promoting and connecting biographers at all levels. It offers three prizes each year: the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize; the Tony Lothian Prize and the Exceptional Contribution to Biography Award. www.thebiographersclub.com
About The Cut Out Girl
Bart van Es left Holland for England many years ago, but one story from his Dutch childhood never left him. It was a mystery of sorts: a young Jewish girl named Lientje had been taken in during the war by relatives and hidden from the Nazis, handed over by her parents, only too aware of the danger they were in. The girl was raised by her foster family as one of their own, but well after the war there was a grave rift, and they were no longer in touch. What was the girl’s side of the story, Bart wondered? What really happened during the war, and after? So began an investigation that would consume the author’s life, and change it irrevocably.
The Cut Out Girl is a deeply moving reckoning with a young girl’s struggle for survival during war, and a triumphant marriage of many keys of writing, ultimately blending them into an extraordinary new harmony, and a deeper truth.
