Virago Buys Holocaust Memoir by Doubleday Chief’s Mother
Virago Modern Classics, an imprint of Hachette UK, has acquired the Holocaust memoir of former Doubleday chief’s mother Edith van Velmans. Her daughter Marianne Velmans was publishing director of Doubleday for 31 years, until her retirement in 2020.
Virago editorial director Olivia Barber acquired world all-languages rights (excluding US) to Edith’s Story from Marianne and her sister Hester Velmans in a direct deal. Hester is a novelist and award-winning translator of French and Dutch contemporary literature.
First published by Penguin in the UK as Edith’s Book in 1998, it was translated into a dozen languages. The publisher said: “When the Germans invaded Holland in 1940, Edith was a vivacious 14-year-old girl from an assimilated Jewish family. But her diary entries record a darkening world. Forced into hiding in 1942, Edith was taken in by a courageous gentile family and lived with them under an assumed name until the end of the war, with a Nazi officer billeted in the room next door.
“Combining the remarkable diary she kept throughout the occupation with letters smuggled between her family members, of whom only Edith and one brother survived, Edith’s Story is an unforgettable true story of hardship, courage and one girl’s belief in humanity in the face of despair.”
Barber said: “With its extraordinary resonances of Anne Frank’s diary, Edith’s Story is a vital work of Holocaust literature and a true modern classic. Edith’s experience of hiding in plain sight, under constant threat of discovery or betrayal, is remarkable. It is impossible to read the mingled love and despair in her smuggled family letters, or her amazing determination to keep believing in people’s essential goodness, without being profoundly moved.”
Hester and Marianne Velmans said: “With the passing of the last of the Second World War generation, it is important to remind people of what can happen to the most ordinary citizens in the madness of war.”
