The Book
"The Zookeeper's Wife" is about one of the most successful hideouts of World War II. It's a tale of people, animals, transcendence, and subversive acts of compassion.
With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.
"The Zookeeper's Wife" is the winner of the 2008 Orion Book Award, which is conferred annually to a book that deepens our connection to the natural world, presents new ideas about our relationship with nature, and achieves excellence in writing. ""The Zookeepers Wife" is a groundbreaking work of nonfiction," said a selection committee member, "in which the human relationship to nature is explored in an absolutely original way through looking at the Holocaust." Kathleen Dean Moore, the committee's chairperson, said: "A few years ago, 'nature' writers were asking themselves, How can a book be at the same time a work of art, an act of conscientious objection to the destruction of the world, and an affirmation of hope and human decency? "The Zookeeper's Wife" answers this question."
Read an Excerpt from "The Zookeeper's Wife"
View the Washington Post review
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