The Cut Out Girl

Astonishing. Van Es has created a masterpiece of history and memoir, concluding on a note of reconciliation, hope and great love * Evening Standard * An extraordinary, harrowing story of loss, survival and love * Guardian * Deeply moving, this is a remarkable memoir * Sunday Times * Powerful . . . extraordinary * Irish Times * Brought to life with family photographs and diary entries that add further impact to Lien's harrowing memories and testimony - this deeply affecting and fascinating story is guaranteed to haunt you * Sunday Mirror * Remarkable - the story of one traumatic childhood, deeply moving, and told with great dexterity, allowing the wisdoms of today to run parallel with the absorbing narrative of wartime events * Penelope Lively * Compassionate and thoughtfully rendered, the book is both a memorable portrait of a remarkable woman and a testament to the healing power of understanding. A complex and uplifting tale * Kirkus * A nuanced, moving, and unusual "hidden child" account * Publishers Weekly * Superb. This is a necessary book - painful, harrowing, tragic, but also uplifting * The Times Book of the Week * Fascinating, beautifully written. Van Es carefully salvages Lien's story and creates a deeply moving and complex book about war, atrocity and human suffering * The Oldie * Sensational and gripping . . . shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of our time * Judges of the Costa Book of the Year Prize 2018 * Luminous, elegant, haunting - I read it straight through * Philippe Sands, Author of East West Street * Deeply moving. Writes with an almost Sebaldian simplicity and understatement * Guardian * Harrowing and beautiful * Bookseller * An awe-inspiring account of the tragedies and triumphs within the world of the Holocaust's "hide-away" children, and of the families who sheltered them * Georgia Hunter, author of We Were the Lucky Ones * The Cut Out Girl is a reminder of the extraordinary richness of archives and the treasures released by scholarly research * TLS * An extraordinary story, harrowing, deeply affecting. This fascinating story is guaranteed to haunt you * People * A moving story of personal and family history, with a scholar's objective eye for the bigger picture. * Irish Times * Harrowing . . . profoundly moving * Daily Express *

Bart van Es was born in the Netherlands and is bilingual in English and Dutch. He now lives with his family in England. He is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Catherine's College.