Joe's War - My Father Decoded by Annette Kobak

Joe's War - My Father Decoded by Annette Kobak

'It didn't occur to me to ask my father as I grew up why he had nothing from his past before the war - no pictures of himself when young, no family photographs, no mementos of any kind. He was a man without a past, and I failed to notice.' Annette Kobak's father, born in Czechoslovakia, escaped as a nineteen- year-old from German-occupied Poland in the spring of 1940 and joined the Polish army in France, ending up intercepting morse code in a top secret unit in London. This, and very much more, she discovered only half a century later when she started, with his help, unravelling his past after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kathryn Hughes on the biographies that will be making waves in 2004

The best of the bunch includes Joe's War: My Father DecodedAs well as being a meditation on the way that stories which once seemed frozen behind the iron curtain are now thawing back to life, Joe's War is also a frank account of the impossibility of ever fully realising that your parents once knew a time that did not include you. GUARDIAN

' startling reading the description of his escape across a frozen river with a grenade in his coat pocket, being shot at by Russians, is heart-stoppingly exciting It is gripping and studded with humour [an] unusual and complex book.' Aileen Reid, Sunday Telegraph

'This is a fascinating and enjoyable book. Eminently readable, it rambles engagingly and instructively through many spheres, private and public, leaving one with haunting reflections.' Adam Zamoyski, Sunday Times

'Annette Kobak is an accomplished travel writer a very detailed and well-researched book and engaging piece of writing' Morning Star

For the past 12 years Annette Kobak has reviewed regularly for the New York Times Book Review and the Times Literary Supplement, and for five years has presented the BBC Radio 4 series The Art of Travel.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781844080489
ISBN 10	184408048X
Title	Joe's War - My Father Decoded
Author	Annette Kobak
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Little, Brown Book Group
Year published	2004-02-05
Number of pages	436
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.