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Usborne has acquired the world English rights to a previously untold historical novel by Vanessa Curtis.
The Earth is Singing tells the story of Hanna, a 15-year-old Jewish girl of Riga, whose life is turned upside down when her dad is mysteriously taken away by Soviet forces and she and her family are forced to move into a ghetto with 30,000 others and endure starvation, forced labour and imprisonment.
World rights for the novel, by the former author of Zelah Green and The Haunting of Tabitha Grey were acquired by Stephanie King, commissioning editor at Usborne, from Ella Kahn, Diamond Kahn and Woods Literary Agency.
King said: “Closely based on the relatively untold true story of the Jews of Riga, The Earth is Singing is a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, betrayal and survival. I found it impossible to put down and equally impossible to forget, with Hanna’s voice staying with me long after I’d turned the final page.”
Curtis was inspired to write when she discovered her own Jewish Latvian heritage. She said: “The story of the Jews of Riga is not widely known. After finding out that my great-grandmother was born there, but came over to England at the turn of the twentieth century, I began to wonder what happened to the Jewish friends and relatives that she had left behind.”
Curtis agent, Ella Kahn added: “When I first read Vanessa Curtis’s brilliantly evocative new novel, I knew it was an incredibly powerful and important story that had to be told.”
The Earth is Singing is scheduled for publication on 27th January 2015 – which also marks the Holocaust Memorial Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.