But You Did Not Come Back

Praise for But You Did Not Come Back Named a Book of the Year by the Economist Winner of the National Jewish Book Award (Biography, Autobiography and Memoir) Named a Memoir of the Year by the Times (UK) "A profoundly moving testimony of the challenges of survival, a wake-up call to those who ignore the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, and a stunning tribute to her late father, But You Did Not Come Back is heartbreaking, important, and unlike anything that has preceded it."--Andre Aciman "I read this book in one sitting, it was unputdownable, an astonishing account of a family caught up in the Holocaust's turbulent wake, so deeply sad and very, very moving. Most striking to me was the brutal honesty and clarity of her relationship with her father who, despite his murder by the Nazis, is still very much with her more than fifty years later, and the question, so troubling, as to whether it would have been better if he had come back instead of her."--Thomas Harding, author of Hanns and Rudolf "In tight, unsparing prose, [Loridan-Ivens] confronts the delusions her father held, and the lies she told herself. A small book with a big voice."--Economist (Books of the Year 2016) "Profound and moving . . . elegantly rendered into English by Sandra Smith . . . [This] slim but powerful book is both a vital account of her survival and a tender reply to her father . . . Seldom do such short books make so big an impact . . . Her important and miraculous testimony will endure."--Minneapolis Star Tribune "Extraordinary, unflinching and deeply moving . . . [Loridan-Ivens] describes her experiences with a resolute commitment to detail; there is the brutal, visceral truth . . . and there are harrowing stories . . . But there is no room for sentimentality in Loridan-Ivens's honest and self-aware prose: the facts of her incarceration speak emotively enough . . . Very occasionally a book comes along that demands to be published, to be read, to be talked about. A book about pain and suffering, about cruelty and humanity, about grief and love. But You Did Not Come Back is an exquisitely written, beautifully translated and unwaveringly honest testimony; a story we will all do well never to forget."--Guardian "In this powerful book [Marceline Loridan-Ivens] tells of her harrowing experiences in the extermination camp, of her intense desire to go on living and how to bear the pain of surviving when her father did not."--Daily Express (Best Memoirs of the Season) "In simple language, without frills or excessive descriptions, [Loridan-Ivens] brings the atrocities of the Holocaust to light as lived by a teenage girl."--Key Peninsula News "Loridan-Ivens brings the clarity of an adolescent's lucid memory to her writing--subtly translated by Sandra Smith . . . woven into her story is such a lucid, life-giving spirit infusing the tales of heroism she casually tells, as well as the guilty secrets she discloses, that this reader, for one, wants to thank this courageous, honest woman for her transformative story."--Jewish Chronicle "Who is a survivor? What does a survivor remember? How does a survivor continue to struggle throughout his or her life? Marceline Loridan-Ivens powerfully and honestly answers these questions in her short but graphic volume of painful remembrance . . . Marceline presents her struggle to survive in personal, forthright, and raw prose . . . An important and piercing first-hand testimony."--Jewish Book Council "A brief, unforgettable memoir."--Jewish Week "Loridan-Ivens' memoir is an instructive presentation of camp experience and its aftermath . . . But You Did Not Come Back . . . pushes our understanding of the war and its aftermath into new territory."--Canadian Jewish News "[A] devastating memoir. [Loridan-Ivens] refuses all pity in this slim but intense testimony . . . Her great achievemen

Marceline Loridan-Ivens was born in 1928. She has worked as an actress, a screenwriter, and a director. She directed The Birch-Tree Meadow in 2003, starring Anouk Aimee, as well as several documentaries with Joris Ivens. Sandra Smith is the translator of Suite Francaise and eleven other novels by Irene Nemirovsky, as well as a new translation of Camus's L'Etranger. She has been awarded the French-American Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize and the PEN Translation Prize. She lives in New York.