La Nina Alemana

Quel est le sujet du livre "La Nina Alemana"

In 1939 before everything changed, Hannah Rosenthal lived a charmed life. Her family moved in Berlin’s highest social circles, admired by friends and neighbors. Eleven-year-old Hannah was often taken by her mother for an afternoon treat at the tea room of the beautiful Adlon Hotel, both dressed in their finest clothes. She spent her afternoons at the park with her best friend Leo Martin. But, in an instant, that sunlit world vanished. Now the streets of Berlin are draped with red, white, and black flags; their fine possessions are hauled away, and they are no longer welcome in the places that once felt like home. The two friends make a pact: come what may, they promise to have a future together.

As Hannah and Leo’s families desperately begin to search for a means of escape, a glimmer of hope appears when they discover the Saint Louis, a transatlantic liner that can give Jews safe passage to Cuba. After a frantic search to obtain visas, the Rosenthals and the Martins depart from Hamburg on the luxurious passenger liner bound for Havana. Life aboard the ship is a welcome respite from the gloom of Berlin—filled with masquerade balls, dancing, and exquisite meals every night.

As the passengers gain renewed hope for a bright future ahead, love between Hannah and Leo blossoms. But soon reports from the outside world began to filter in, and dark news overshadows the celebratory atmosphere on the ship; the governments of Cuba, the United States, and Canada are denying the passengers of the St. Louis admittance to their countries, forcing them to return to Europe as it descends into the Second World War. The ship that had seemed their salvation seems likely to become their death sentence.

After four days anchored at bay, only a handful of passengers are allowed to disembark onto Cuban soil, and Hannah and Leo must face the grim reality that they could be torn apart. Their future is unknown, and their only choice will have an impact in generations to come.

Decades later in New York City on her eleventh birthday, Anna Rosen receives a mysterious envelope from Hannah, a great-aunt she has never met but who raised her deceased father. In an attempt to piece together her father’s mysterious past, Anna and her mother travel to Havana to meet Hannah, who is turning eighty-seven years old. Hannah reveals old family ties, recounts her journey aboard the Saint Louis and, for the first time, reveals what happened to her father and Leo. Bringing together the pain of the past with the mysteries of the present, Hannah gives young Anna a sense of their shared histories, forever intertwining their lives, honoring those they loved and cruelly lost.

Armando Lucas Correa is a Cuban writer.

Correa is the recipient of various outstanding achievement awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications and the Society of Professional Journalism. Recently, he was awarded with the Cintas Foundation Fellowship in Creative Writing.

His book En busca de Emma (In Search of Emma: Two Fathers, One Daughter and the Dream of a Family) was published by Rayo, Harper Collins in 2007 and for Aguilar, Santillana (Mexico) in 2009. It will be available in English (In Search of Emma) by Harper One, October 12th, 2021.

His first novel The German Girl/La niña alemana was published in October, 2016, in English and Spanish by Atria Books, a division of Simon and Schuster. The German Girl is an international bestseller and it has been translated to 16 languages and it is in more than 30 countries.

His second novel The Daughter's Tale/La hija Olvidada was published in May 7th, 2019 and has been translate to German, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Italian, Hungarian and Hebrew.

For his third novel, The Night Travelers (Atria, January 20th, 2023), Correa received the Creative Writing Award of the Cintas Foundation Fellowship (2022). The Night traveler/La viajera nocturna has already been acquired for translation into 10 languages.

He lives in Manhattan with his husband and their three children.