Paula

Paula must have once been a happy woman before her fiancé died in the war. A woman who eventually begins to silence herself out of fear and shame, who never reveals the identity of the man whose child she raises alone, until the refuge of silence becomes a prison where love and empathy wither away. Her daughter and granddaughter will never know who her father or grandfather was. Sandra Hoffmann's memoir "Paula" reads like a family novel. With courage and tenderness, she recounts the life of her grandmother, who was overwhelmingly close to her yet about whom she knows so little. She counters the power of silence with the strength of language.