Unearthed: A Lost Actress, a Forbidden Book, and a Search for Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust

Unearthed is a story about Meryl Frank's search for her cousin Franya Winter, who was a leading light of Vilna's Yiddish theater. Her aunt Mollie had forbidden her to read a Yiddish book containing the answer to how Franya died, but Meryl obeyed. The book reveals a lost world destroyed by hatred and illuminates the cultural haven of Vilna and its resistance during World War II.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 18 May 2023
Publisher: Hachette Books

As a child, Meryl Frank was the chosen inheritor of family remembrance. Her aunt Mollie, a formidable and cultured woman, insisted that Meryl never forget who they were, where they came from, and the hate that nearly destroyed them. Over long afternoons, Mollie told her about the city, the theater, and, above all else, Meryl's cousin, the radiant Franya Winter. Franya was the leading light of Vilna's Yiddish theater, a remarkable and precocious woman who cast off the restrictions of her Hasidic family and community to play roles as prostitutes and bellhops, lovers and nuns. Yet, there was one thing her aunt Mollie would never tell Meryl: how Franya died. Before Mollie passed away, she gave Meryl a Yiddish book containing the terrible answer, but forbade her to read it. And for years, Meryl obeyed.

Unearthed is the story of Meryl's search for Franya and a timely history of hatred and resistance. Through archives across four continents, by way of chance encounters and miraculous discoveries, and eventually, guided by the shocking truth recorded in the pages of the forbidden book, Meryl conjures the rogue spirit of her cousin, her beauty, and her tragedy. Meryl's search reveals a lost world destroyed by hatred, illuminating the cultural haven of Vilna and its resistance during World War II.

As she seeks to find her lost family legacy, Meryl looks for answers to the questions that have defined her life: what is our duty to the past? How do we honor such memories while keeping them from consuming us? And what do we teach our children about tragedy?

Weight: 444g
Dimension: 235 x 160 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780306828362